Ma'am Darling
99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret
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Ma'am Darling
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Narrated by:
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Eleanor Bron
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By:
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Craig Brown
About this listen
The funny and tragic, bestselling biography of The Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, perfect for fans of Netflix’s The Crown.
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR • A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR • A DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE YEAR
‘I honked so loudly the man sitting next to me dropped his sandwich’ Observer
She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor.
Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. John Fowles hoped to keep her as his sex-slave. Dudley Moore propositioned her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was in love with her.
For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy. “If they knew what I had done in my dreams with your royal ladies” he confided to a friend, “they would take me to the Tower of London and chop off my head!”
Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding.
In her 1950’s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman.
The tale of Princess Margaret is pantomime as tragedy, and tragedy as pantomime. It is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled.
Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues and essays, Ma’am Darling is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography, and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society.
‘Brown has been our best parodist and satirist for decades now … Ma’am Darling is, as you would expect, very funny; also, full of quirky facts and genial footnotes. Brown has managed to ingest huge numbers of royal books and documents without losing either his judgment or his sanity. He adores the spectacle of human vanity’ Julian Barnes, Guardian
©2017 Craig Brown (P)2017 HarperCollins PublishersCritic Reviews
What listeners say about Ma'am Darling
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- finnea
- 20-08-2023
Brilliant, literary, hilarious
i can only imagine that the negative reviews of this glorious book are from people expecting a more conventional royal bio. This is not one for royalists but a mix of sharp, psychologically acute social commentary and acerbic wit that absolutely skewers the style and pretension of this once iconic royal.
The style is quite literary/experimental, drawing on a plethora of journalistic sources. It's beautifully written with many laugh-out-loud moments.
Eleanor Bron's narration is pitch perfect. One of my most listened to audio-books.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Merylee
- 09-12-2017
Fantastic! Don't believe what you've read!
So insightful, funny and so perfectly narrated. If you love the Royals like I do, but see them warts and all, you'll eat this up!
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Rodney Wetherell
- 30-11-2020
Enjoyable if largely trivial material
Craig Brown is a very clever writer for Private Eye, and he has written a clever book which will not be to everyone's taste - so much gossipy stuff about one woman. Yet she is an extraordinary figure - not very nice, a combination of royal dignity and bohemian affectations, always looking for a meaningful place in the world. I was naive in swallowing some sections of the book, eg Margaret's supposed marriage to Picasso, until I finally woke up - wait a minute! Craig Brown simply relates these sections as if they were part of the factual information, which makes the reader distrust the text from then on, at least slightly. He has researched his subject well, going through so many diaries which are no doubt otherwise forgettable, extracting some fascinating snippets. The whole book has the flavour of 'fascinating snippets' - and not so fascinating. I had no trouble finishing the book - and by the way, the reading by Eleanor Bron was one for the connoisseurs. She nailed the tone of the book perfectly, I thought. In fact it was Ms Bron who kept me reading keenly, when I might have got bored by the material.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 03-12-2019
Dreadful
Absolutely dreadful🤮 - a complete waste of your time and money! Don’t bother with this book!
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 02-10-2019
Save your money
This book is all over the place with way too much detail given to unnecessary and and boring information. The reader is excellent but the story is a shambles. Not sure what the authors aim of writing the book was. Cannot recommend at all.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 16-07-2020
what was this book About?
One of the most ridiculous books ever..Chronologically all over the place. and not very interesting.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 29-10-2020
truly dreadful
This book was at of endurance of which I am afraid I failed. I tried but several hours was more than I could stand of long chapters based on one comment that the Princess may or as it turns out may not have said and a whole argument over the possibilities of who may or may not have been present if she may or may not have said it pretty well did me in.
Duller than a phone book and a damn sight less informative .
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Synnøve Søe
- 15-11-2017
Ghastly & Vile & Boring
Yet another “writer” selling/“writing” nothing but a boring, ghastly and vile “biography” of a Royal, in the hope of gulping our money - the stupid readers money. I have look forward to this book as I thought it would be hilarious, toe crumbling, ocasionally gripping, moving and informative. I couldn’t finish this mess, I was not interested/never captivated even the slightest gripped by the story as a listener/costumer my money is wasted. If you don’t have salt, sugar & vinegar in any story you want to tell as an author - the mix - then you have nothing but self-promoting and embarrasing NOTHING! Waste of time and money - mine and yours - you, the next Audible reader if you buy it. Don’t. 👎🏼
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- tracy
- 02-05-2024
Much made of nothing
subject deserved better. Nothing new told in an uninteresting way that did not improve it at all.
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