Description: Edward VII spent fifty-nine years as Prince of Wales, but only nine as King of England. In this first-ever American biography of Edward -- "the Caresser" in Henry James's unforgettable coinage -- Stanley Weintraub, the acclaimed biographer of Victoria, her consort Albert, and Disraeli explains how a lazy, irresponsible playboy became a beloved monarch whose name defines the era of his reign.

Weintraub paints an unforgettable picture of the Prince of Wales and his worlds: his difficult childhood, his introductions to gentlemanly sins, his chilly arranged marriage to the pretty but dull Princess Alexandra of Denmark, from whom he escaped in a succession of balls, spas, gambling, gourmandizing, and carousing. In detailing Edward's string of society mistresses -- Lily Langtry, Daisy Warwick, and Alice Keppel -- Weintraub also lists the Prince's "god-children", a great many of whom were in fact his own.

Despite it all the public loved him, and Weintraub's candid portrait reveals an instinctive diplomat, without arrogance or pretension, and a surprisingly admirable man. An extraordinary mixture of tragedy and notoriety, Edward was the first superstar in a dawning age of celebrity.

Please Wait