One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman. By the time of her death, she had come to personify disappointment. In her 1950's heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding. '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. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy. John Fowles hoped to keep her as his sex-slave. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. This is a brilliantly original book, as much a portrait of the age as of the princess.A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR * A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR * A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR * A DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE YEAR 'An original, memorable and substantial achievement' TLS'A masterpiece' Mail on Sunday'I honked so loudly the man sitting next to me dropped his sandwich' ObserverShe made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. Princess Margaret may have enjoyed the company of artists and writers, but most of the artists and writers were at least as desperate to be seen at the same parties as the Queen’s sister, as she ever was to be entertained by them. But it also reveals the limits of the 1960s’ social revolution. Ma’am Darling shows how the bohemian and royal worlds clashed in the person of Princess Margaret. She left, but most people weren’t so brave. George Harrison once plucked up the courage to ask her if she wouldn’t mind leaving an after-show party, as protocol decreed that no one was allowed to eat before she left and the Beatles were starving. However, despite her bohemian streak, she was punctilious in matters of royal protocol. Her husband, Lord Snowdon, was a photographer, and she knew and partied with everyone who was anyone, not just in high society, but in artistic circles, too. She had no constitutional role to fulfil, but was obliged-or certainly felt obliged-to keep up royal appearances. The princess was always in a difficult position. Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret tells the story of princess Margaret, the Queen’s younger sister, through her appearance in the diaries and memoirs of well known people over the course of her life-1930-2002. Foreign Policy & International Relations.

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