That woman - Anne Sebba

This will be the first serious yet sympathetic book by a female biographer to explain the story of how an American divorcee became a hate figure for allegedly ensnaring a British King from his throne. It focuses on the core conflict of her life in the 1930s, with particular reference to her impoverished American childhood as a motivation for her ambition.

'That woman', so called by her sister-in-law the new Queen Elizabeth, was born BessieWallis Warfield in 1896 in Baltimore, and she endured a childhood of relative obscurity which sharpened a burning desire to rise above her circumstances. To win in the game of life was her unequivocal aim.

'That woman' was not only one of the most talked about women of her generation. In death she has become one of the most written about and reviled. But she has also become a symbol of female empowerment as well as a style icon. And yet Wallis Simpson remains an enigma. A witty woman who lived on her wits. 'A woman can never be too rich or too thin' - one of her aphorisms - is all that some people know of her. Neither beautiful nor brilliant, both her assumed as well as her known moral transgressions add to her aura and dazzle. Accused of fascist sympathies and Nazi friends, she is an object of fascination that has increased with the years.