Speaker: Andrew Lownie
Topic: Edward VIII, Lord Mountbatten and Censorship
Venue: Vinson Lecture Theatre
Time: 15:30-16:30 Sunday 9 October
Talk Summary:
In this wide-ranging talk, the acclaimed biographer and historian Andrew Lownie will examine the controversial and contentious lives of two of the most prominent members of the royal family in the 20th century. Edward VIII, who gave up his throne for Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee, was also an admirer of Hitler and a shameless fantasist. Their exile in France only made matters worse. Lord Mountbatten and his wife Edwina conducted numerous affairs while strutting the world stage at a time of war and economic crisis. Andrew Lownie looks at their often bizarre lives and reveals how hard it is to get to the truth about Britain’s royal family.
Andrew Lownie is one of Britain’s most acclaimed biographers and a leading literary agent. His books include John Buchan: Presbyterian Cavalier (1995), Stalin’s Englishman: the Lives of Guy Burgess (2015), The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves (2019), and Traitor King: the Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (2021). He is a member of the Society of Authors and was until recently the literary agent to the international writers’ organisation PEN. In 1998 he founded the Biographers Club, a monthly dining society for biographers and those involved in promoting biography, and the Biographers’ Club Prize which supports first-time biographers.