He adores the spectacle of human vanity' Julian Barnes, Guardian `Ma'am Darling is fascinating. Brown has managed to ingest huge numbers of royal books and documents without losing either his judgment or his sanity. Ma'am Darling is, as you would expect, very funny also, full of quirky facts and genial footnotes. `Brown has been our best parodist and satirist for decades now. He adores the spectacle of human vanity' Julian Barnes, Guardian 'Brown has been our best parodist and satirist for decades now. Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues and essays, Ma'am Darling is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography, and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society. It is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled.

The tale of Princess Margaret is pantomime as tragedy, and tragedy as pantomime. 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. Print Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess MargaretĪ 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.

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