An intelligent and insightful exploration of Diana Spencer – the person and the cultural figure – through her relationships with the wide range of people who surrounded her.

DIANAWORLD:
The Many Lives of the People’s Princess
by Edward White
W.W. Norton, 2025
(via The Gernert Company)

DIANAWORLD is a fascinating, multi-faceted portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales—the person, the cultural figure, and the enduring mythology of the “People’s Princess”—exploring her relationships with those who knew her intimately, those who worked with and for her, and the many ordinary people from Britain, America, and elsewhere who felt connected to her. In some chapters, White will pay particular attention to Diana’s relationship with one person; in others, there will be a wider cast of characters. But in each case these relationships will connect to a theme highly germane to her private life, and her public reputation, providing an opportunity to question unexamined assumptions, as well as branching out into areas unexplored by straightforward biographies of Diana. This is a book about what Diana means to “us.”

Based in the UK, Edward White studied European and American history at Mansfield College, Oxford and Goldsmiths College, London. Since 2005 he has worked in the television industry, including two years at the BBC, devising programs in its art and history departments. Hehas written for publications including the Paris Review and is a contributor to The Times Literary Supplement. He is the author of The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America (FSG, 2014) and The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock (W.W. Norton, 2021).