Beschreibung:

ROYALTY - EDWARD VIIIThe visitors' books of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson covering thirty-five years including his time as Prince of Wales, King, and Duke of Windsor, and featuring their signatures as such ("Wallis W. Simpson" and "E.P."; "Edward RI", 12 November 1936; "Edward - Duke of Windsor" and "Wallis - Duchess of Windsor", 4 June 1937); including also such guests as: equerry Ulick Alexander, adviser Walter Monckton and solicitor Albert George Allen during the heat of the abdication crisis on 3 and 4 December 1936; Winston Churchill 10 September 1948 in Cap d'Antibes; Anthony Eden; Esmond Harmsworth who had suggested to Wallis the idea of a morganatic marriage; Ricardo Espírito Santo, at Cascais where he hosted the Duke and Duchess, July 1940; Prince George (Duke of Kent) and Princess Marina; Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten; Alan 'Tommy' Lascelles; Dukes of Buccleuch, Sutherland and Marlborough (all at Balmoral); the Earl and Countess of Portarlington; Duff and Diana Cooper; NBC's Fred Bate and wife Genevieve; Jack Warner; US Embassy Secretary Walter T. Prendergast and Air Attaché Martin Scanlon; Maud 'Emerald' Cunard; Sibyl Colefax; Constance Spry; head of the Foreign Office Robert Vansittart; Eugène and Kitty de Rothschild; Randolph Churchill; Peregrine and Katherine Brownlow; Ghislaine de Polignac; Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich Romanov and wife Sheila; James Pope-Hennessy; Harold, Lord Tennyson; and many others, a few pages of the first volume lightly waterstained, 2 crushed red morocco albums by Smythson ("Stationery for Town or Country House", title leaf), upper cover of the first volume gilt lettered "The Fort", g.e., oblong 4to (195 x 250mm.), Fort Belvedere (Windsor), Antibes, Balmoral, Sandringham, H.M. Yacht Victoria and Albert, Cascais, Bahamas, Gif-sur-Yvette, and elsewhere, 1 January 1935 to 7 March 1970Footnotes'A CURIOUS CATALOGUE OF EXILE': The remarkable visitors' books that accompanied the Duke and Duchess of Windsor throughout their travels and travails. On 14 January 1935, Mrs Simpson wrote from Fort Belvedere to her aunt in Washington that she had given the Prince for Christmas "two red leather books for here, one for the card accounts and one a guest book" (Wallis & Edward, Letters 1931-1937, 1986). During the next two years all who stayed at the Fort signed, giving a comprehensive picture of their social circle.
In January 1936 the Prince succeeded to the throne as King Edward VIII. His guests during the eleven months of his reign signed the book, including those who accompanied him on the Nahlin cruise in August, and those who stayed at Balmoral in September. Towards the end of the year, signers include those who came to see him in connection with the Abdication crisis - Walter Monckton, George Allen Esmond Harmsworth, and others.
When Edward left England after abdicating, "Among the few personal items he took with him was the visitors book he had started with Mrs Simpson in 1935. The Fort was tooled on its cover, and it would lie on the hall tables of all the many houses they were to live in. It is a curious catalogue of exile. Under little strips of gummed letterhead, visitors signed at Schloss Enzesfeld, Candé (where all their wedding guests signed), Wasserleonburg where they spent their honeymoon, their rented house at Versailles, their rented villa at Cap d'Antibes, their rented hôtel particulier in the Boulevard Suchet, the house in Portugal where they spent anxious weeks in the summer of 1940, Government House, Nassau... until it finally came to rest in the 1950s in the Moulin de la Tuilerie at Gif, their country house near Paris. For it never came home" (Michael Bloch, The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor, 1988, p.98).
Particularly poignant are the changing forms of Edward and Wallis' monograms pasted at various points: Edward's Prince of Wales crest; the Art Deco "E.R.I. VIII" as King; a sole, angular E within a hexagon with ducal coronet; and finally the interlocked W and E also with ducal coronet. The albums also cover the Windsors' wartime period in the Bahamas, their post-war trip to the UK, and the reigniting of their friendship with Churchill.
The original album given to the Duke by his future wife was completed in 1958 and another near-identical volume was ordered from Smythson. It was signed by all the subsequent guests at Gif until the Duke's declining health prevented them from receiving further visitors there. The final entry is dated 7 March 1970, two years and two months before the ex-King's death.
Provenance: The Duke (1894-1972) and Duchess (1896-1986) of Windsor; presented by Maître Suzanne Blum, the Duchess of Windsor's French lawyer and executrix, to the present owner who had provided important assistance in the administration of the Duchess's estate.