Book review: The real Wallis Simpson

William Collins, £20

Review by Dani Garavelli

MY first thought when confronted with Anna Pasternak's new biography of Wallis Simpson - the American divorcee Edward VIII gave up the throne to marry - was: "Really? Another one?" There have already been more accounts of the love affair that rocked the monarchy than Simpson had haute couture dresses.

Pasternak is aware of this and tries to head the sceptical reader off at the pass: "[This] story...has been told so many times that it has taken on the character of a fairy-tale," she writes. "Like fairy tales, much of what we are repeatedly told is make-believe."

The author's position is that a succession of hatchet jobs has turned the Duchess of Windsor into a "caricature of villainous womanhood." In Untitled, Pasternak sets out to redeem her; to convince us that, far from being a ruthless social climber, who publicly ridiculed her husband, she was "warm, funny, irresistibly charming, loyal and dignified to the end."

There are two problems with this objective. The first is that most of us are not so gullible. We have seen the way history treats other royal women, from Anne Boleyn to Meghan Markle, and we understand they are blamed for everything from failing to produce male progeny to making their husbands go prematurely bald. There can be few people au fait with the Edward VIII/Wallis Simpson story who did not already assume she'd been unfairly maligned.

The second is that Pasternak fails to deliver on her promise. By focusing on plaintive letters Simpson wrote to her husband Ernest and to Edward, she does shift the perspective slightly, recasting her as a woman who - having quite enjoyed the Prince of Wales' attentions - finds herself trapped by his growing obsession. But those letters are not new. The ones to Ernest were at the heart of Anna Sebba's biography, That Woman, published in 2012; and the one to Edward has been in the public domain since the mid-80s.

Pasternak's attempt at promoting the Duchess of Windsor as a woman of depth also falls flat. Having followed her through dinner parties at the home she shared with Ernest, at the Duke's country retreat, Belvedere Fort, and later in the Bahamas, where Edward was governor, the most you could say was that she was a consummate hostess and the Duke such a besotted, needy man-child it's a wonder she could tolerate him at all.

Though it is possible to sympathise with Simpson's plight - forever having to live up to the legend of a love that had waned - her interests didn't extend much beyond Schiaparelli and champagne. After the abdication, she and Edward lived a vacuous life in resentful exile, when they could have devoted themselves to something more meaningful.

Those who are new to the Wallis Simpson saga will find plenty in Untitled to keep them reading: it is, after all, an innately interesting tale and Pasternak tells it well enough. Her portrayal of the courtship is insightful, if not original. Edward was the most eligible bachelor in Europe. Wallis, an outsider, was initially flattered by his attentions and the entry it bought her into the highest echelons of British society. Her husband Ernest was willing to turn a blind eye for much the same reasons.

Long before George V died, however, the Duke's fixation had become oppressive. Flashes of frustration with his monomania are evident in her letters. "Sometimes I think you haven't grown up where love is concerned and perhaps it's only a boyish obsession," Simpson writes about the impact his constant demands are having on her marriage. Later, Edward insisted Ernest divorce Simpson so he could marry her.

Though other biographers see Simpson as a schemer, Pasternak suggests she was willing to give up all claim on Edward so he could remain king. As the Duchess of York (who would later become Queen), Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang plotted their downfall, Edward's determination grew and Simpson's faltered. In one letter, she pleaded with Edward to be allowed to return home to Ernest.

When this tactic failed, she offered to go home to the US so he could keep the throne. Pasternak believes Simpson loved Edward and the offer was an act of self-sacrifice; but she also concedes that Simpson understood history would blame her, not him, for the abdication.

Pasternak's portrayal of Edward is savage. She deplores his narcissism and his need to keep Simpson close at all times. Seen through the author's eyes, the Duke's possessiveness comes close to what might now be branded coercive control.

Though damning about many of Edward's character flaws, Pasternak is oddly muted about the couple's dubious political friendships."Like many members of the British aristocracy in the early 1930s, the prince seemed to view fascism as the latest in political chic," she writes. "However Edward was considered too ideologically vacuous to have any real interest in a political creed." As Simpson was close to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, the couple once stayed as guests of the Fuhrer and, even once WWII had started, they continued to entertain fascist friends in Paris, this seems to be letting them off lightly. It doesn't help that one of the friends Pasternak frequently quotes is Diana Mosely, wife of Oswald, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, who went to her death "an unrepentant Nazi."

My biggest gripe with the book, however, is that it contains nothing in the way of fresh revelations. There is no light shed on Simpson's sexual proclivities (it has previously been suggested she was a hermaphrodite and that her first two marriages were unconsummated); nor do we find out anything new about her relationship with Herman Rogers, the man Andrew Morton suggested was the love of her life.

In the first chapter, Pasternak talks of having interviewed Simpson's friends in London, Paris, Gstaad and Marbella. They told her the Duchess was "witty and diverting company" while the duke was "self-absorbed and less engaging," adding that she behaved with "laudable inner strength and dignity despite the terrible slurs and insults hurled at her." This is what you'd hope your own friends would say in such circumstances.

It may well be true, too. Perhaps Simpson was kind and generous and a good influence on Edward. Even so, it's a meagre offering on which to base an entire book.