Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown (Thorndike Press Large Print Biographies & Memoirs)

Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown (Thorndike Press Large Print Biographies & Memoirs) by Glenconner, Anne. library edition. ISBN: 9781432881115.

"Anne Glenconner has been at the center of the royal circle from childhood, when she met and befriended the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, the Princess Margaret. Though the firstborn child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, who controlled one of the largest estates in England, as a daughter she was deemed "the greatest disappointment" and unable to inherit. Since then she has needed all her resilience to survive the vipers of court life with her sense of humor intact. A unique witness to landmark moments in royal history, Maid of Honor at Queen Elizabeths coronation, and a lady in waiting to Princess Margaret until her death in 2002, Annes life has encompassed extraordinary drama and tragedy. In Lady in Waiting, she will share many intimate royalstories from her time as Princess Margarets closest confidante as well as her own battle for survival: her broken-off first engagement on the basis of her "mad blood"; her 54-year marriage to the volatile, unfaithful Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, who left his fortune to a former servant; the death in adulthood of two of her sons; a third son she nursed back from a six-month coma following a horrific motorcycle accident. Through it all, Anne has carried on, traveling the world with the royal family, including visiting the White House, and developing the Caribbean island of Mustique as a safe harbor for the rich and famous-hosting Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Raquel Welch, and many other politicians, aristocrats, and celebrities. With unprecedented insightinto the royal family, Lady in Waiting is a witty, candid, dramatic, at times heart-breaking personal story capturing life in a golden cage for a woman with no inheritance"--