An English aristocrat from inside the royal family's exclusive circle reveals startling information about Princess Diana's life, discussing rumors of her eating disorder, her marriage to Prince Charles, and more. Reprint.

Everyone knows the public Diana: the sweet, shy English girl with "a history but no past" who married the Prince of Wales in a storybook wedding. But what of Diana in private? Was she really just an innocent kindergarten teacher when she and Prince Charles got engaged? Was she truly in love with her fiance - and how did he feel about her? And what went on behind the palace gates after the honeymoon was over? While Diana's previous biographers have been firmly outside her inner circle, Lady Colin Campbell, with personal connections to European and British royalty, takes us inside that circle to bring us the first truly informed account of the Princess's life and marriage. Here is Diana in intimate detail - from the child caught up in her parents' scandalous divorce, to the savvy flirt who captured a Prince. ("If she'd been a wild animal", confides a relative, "she'd have made an excellent hunter".) Here is the lonely teenager roller-skating through Buckingham Palace, and the newlywed who thought her new house in the Cotswolds a terrible comedown from her ancestral home. And here is Diana the woman - from her transformation into a famous beauty to the truth about her relationships with other men both before and after marriage. With extraordinary candor and sympathy - and, above all, with an insider's understanding - Lady Colin Campbell goes beyond the myth of the fairytale princess to unveil the real Diana.

"When I met Diana at a mutual friend's house in 1990, I was astonished by her conduct. Up to this point, the Diana I had encountered was a princess who had behaved very much in keeping with the forms and traditions of royalty. In social situations, she was as circumspect as the rest of them, as indeed all ladies are.... "Now, however, she was the antithesis of circumspect. Throwing caution and reserve to the wind, she said that she wanted me to write the truth about her life 'because I feel as if the whole fairy tale is crushing whatever's left of the real me.... If you'd just write about the real Diana, it would make all the difference.'" --Lady Colin Campbell Who was the real Diana? What was it like to be so privileged yet so anguished, so beloved yet so self-loathing, so spoiled yet so despairing? The Princess of Wales was all these things--far more complicated, conflicted, and intriguing a person than the wildly disparate saint or lunatic she is frequently portrayed to be. Royal insider Lady Colin Campbell sets the record straight on many of the most controversial aspects of Diana's turbulent life: how Charles and Diana's engagement came to pass, though it seemed ill-advised to those closest to both of them; what their honeymoon was really like; the truth behind Diana's bulimia, her widely reported suicide attempts, and her obsession with Camilla Parker Bowles; Diana's search for love and fulfillment with numerous men before, during, and after her marriage; her brilliant manipulations of the press; and her relationship with Dodi Fayed. Lady Colin Campbell's New York Times bestselling biography Diana in Private was the first to expose the truth about Diana and her troubled marriage. In The Real Diana, she reveals that the reason she knew so much about what went on behind the palace gates was because Diana herself was the source. Drawing upon these confidences--as well as on conversations with countless people who knew Diana and with Diana herself in the final years of her life--Lady Colin Campbell combines true insight with true compassion to bring us the most intimate and revealing portrait of the Princess of Wales that we will ever have.

The first authoritative biography of one of the most fabled women of the twentieth century—Princess Diana—that paints an insightful and haunting portrait, a “chilling vision of loneliness, need, and untreated mental illness” (USA Today). “[Sally Bedell] Smith has done a remarkable job extracting what’s genuinely pertinent and interesting about Diana. . . . If you’re going to read one Diana book, this should be it.”—Newsweek For all that has been written about Diana—the books, the commemorative magazines, the thousands of newspaper articles—we have lacked a sophisticated understanding of the woman, her motivations, and her extreme needs. Most books have been exercises in hagiography or character assassination, sometimes both in the same volume. With Diana in Search of Herself, acclaimed biographer Sally Bedell Smith has written the first truly balanced and nuanced portrait of the Princess of Wales, in all her emotional complexity. Drawing on scores of exclusive interviews with Diana’s friends and associates, Smith explores the events and relationships that shaped the Princess, the flashpoints that sent her careening through life, her deep feelings of unworthiness, her view of men, and her perpetual journey toward a better sense of self. By making connections not previously explored, Diana in Search of Herself allows readers to see Diana as she really was, from her birth to her tragic death. Original in its reporting and surprising in its conclusions about the severity of Diana’s mental health problems, Diana in Search of Herself is the smartest and most substantive biography ever written about this mesmerizing woman. NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.

British journalist Davies discloses the personal secrets, hopes, and ambitions--as well as the problems--of the winsome, captivating Princess Diana, the real queen of the House of Windsor. "A compassionate story of two lonely people and an uneasy monarch".--Publishers Weekly. Includes a stunning new chapter.

From the author of the "New York Times" bestseller "Shadows of a Princess" comes the inside story of Princess Diana's journeys in public and private--with over 250 previously unpublished photographs.

Paul Burrell served Diana, Princess of Wales, as her faithful butler from 1987 until her death in 1997. He was much more than an employee: he was her right-hand man, confidant, and friend whom Diana herself described as "the only man she ever trusted." Featuring previously unseen interior photographs and remarkably intimate details, The Way We Were flings open the doors to Kensington Palace, leading readers deep inside the private world of Princess Diana—room by room, memory by memory. Marking the tenth anniversary of the princess’s death, Burrell has penned a faithful and poignant tribute to "the boss"—capturing as never before her vivacity and love of life, her style, her fashion, and her heart. Some images that appeared in the print edition of this book are unavailable in the electronic edition due to rights reasons.