The Diana Years

Album of photographs of Diana, Princess of Wales.

A Princess Remembered Embrace the lasting legacy of Princess Diana with this keepsake Special Edition, filled with insightful writing and gorgeous photography from the LIFE archives. At her storybook royal wedding in 1981-"The Wedding of the Century"-Diana Spencer seemed the perfect match for Prince Charles, the dashing heir to the British throne. Though their story did not end happily ever after, Diana's talent for truly connecting with people changed the monarchy forever, and her commitment to helping the underprivileged continues to inspire us today. From Prince William and Kate Middleton, to Prince Harry, and even Queen Elizabeth II, England's royal family shows the influence of Diana's bold and brave choices. LIFE Diana offers a touching remembrance of "The People's Princess," 20 years after her tragic death.

Critically acclaimed, best-selling biographer Donald Spoto recounts all the pain, promise, and joy of the last year in the tragically short life of Diana, Princess of Wales. For those of us who loved and admired her, Diana's final year was in many ways the most fascinating and insightful of her life. It was a turbulent, amazing period in which she formally severed her marriage ties to the heir to the British throne, fell passionately in love with Dodi al-Fayed, and truly began to come into her own after years of personal adversity. In Diana: The Last Year, Donald Spoto allows us to finally understand the complete story of this woman in conflict. Diana was driven by a philanthropic desire to relieve suffering and change the world, but she was also determined to make up for a youth that was taken from her, at the age of nineteen, when she became the wife of the future king of England. In Donald Spoto's elegant and richly satisfying book, Diana's last year is set before us in all of its triumph and glory.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. This "insanely readable and improbably profound" biography (Chicago Tribune) reveals the truth as only famed journalist Tina Brown could tell it. "The best book on Diana." —The New Yorker Was she “the people’s princess,” who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she manipulative and media-savvy and nearly brought down the monarchy? Tina Brown, former Editor-in-Chief of Tatler, England’s glossiest gossip magazine; Vanity Fair; and The New Yorker gives us the answers. Tina knew Diana personally and has far-reaching insight into the royals and the Queen herself. In The Diana Chronicles, you will meet a formidable female cast and understand as never before the society that shaped them: Diana's sexually charged mother, her scheming grandmother, the stepmother she hated but finally came to terms with, and bad-girl Fergie, her sister-in-law, who concealed wounds of her own. Most formidable of them all was her mother-in-law, the Queen, whose admiration Diana sought till the day she died. Add Camilla Parker-Bowles, the ultimate "other woman" into this combustible mix, and it's no wonder that Diana broke out of her royal cage into celebrity culture, where she found her own power and used it to devastating effect.

Was Diana murdered? Was the British Royal family involved? Was she pregnant and engaged to Dodi? Did the paparazzi or 'a blinding white flash' cause the crash? Was driver Henri Paul really drunk or were his blood tests switched? Since Princess Diana died in Paris on 31 August 1997 there have been more questions than answers about the crash that killed her, despite lengthy official French and British investigations. This is the authoritative and up-to-date study into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, which includes unique access to Diana's close friends and bodyguards, French and British detectives who probed the crash, and the official French investigation's dossier into the crash.

"Photos from the ... National Geographic archives document the royal's most memorable moments in the spotlight; a ... personal remembrance by Diana friend and biographer Tina Brown adds context and nuance to a ... life twenty years after her tragic death. Float down memory lane through more than 100 ... images of Diana, from her days as a schoolgirl to her engagement to Prince Charles, the birth of Princes William and Harry, and her life in the media as an outspoken advocate for the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden"--Provided by publisher.

Today, twenty-five years since Diana's death, seems the right moment for a reassessment of this remarkable woman. Did the Royal Family learn lessons from her life, about protection and privacy, about how to incorporate 'outsiders' into their ranks, about how to manage scandal? Did it take any lessons from her death, and the public's reaction not only to that, but to the behaviour of, in particular, the Queen and Prince Charles, in the aftermath? Or have the family and the Palace - 'the men in grey suits', as Diana called them - continued on the same track, unchanged, repeating many of the mistakes made with her, from her first nervous ventures in royal circles to her later defiance of traditional protocols? These and many other questions are explored in this authoritative book, written by two people closely associated with Diana: Inspector Ken Wharfe was the Princess's police protection officer for six years during the most turbulent period of her marriage to Prince Charles. Ros Coward was chosen as author of the official book by the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Trust. Their book is both an examination of the people and events of the time, and an elegiac tribute to one of the most iconic figures of the late twentieth century.

The first Vreeland book to focus on her three decades at Harper’s Bazaar, where the legendary editor honed her singular take on fashion. In 1936, Harper’s Bazaar editor in chief Carmel Snow made a decision that changed fashion forever when she invited a stylish London transplant named Diana Vreeland to join her magazine. Vreeland created “Why Don’t You?”—an illustrated column of irreverent advice for chic living. Soon she was named the magazine’s fashion editor—a position that Richard Avedon later famously credited Vreeland with inventing. The troika of Snow, legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch, and Vreeland formed a creative collaboration that continued Harper’s Bazaar’s dominance as America’s leading fashion magazine. As World War II changed women’s role in society, Vreeland’s love for fashion and endless imagination provided exciting, modern imagery for this new paradigm. This book covers Vreeland’s three-decade tenure at Bazaar, revealing how Vreeland reshaped the role of the fashion editor by introducing styling, creative direction, and visual storytelling. Her innovative perspective and creative working relationships with photographers such as Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Lillian Bassman, and Hoyningen-Huene brought the American woman into a modern world. Through more than 300 images from the magazine, this book shows how Vreeland’s work not only influenced her readership, but also forged the path for modern fashion storytelling that endures today.