Diana, Her Life and Legacy

The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, moved the entire world. This book is dedicated to her memory. Inspired by the universal outpouring of grief, it is offered as a tribute to her grace, wit and beauty, and as testimony to her remarkable compassion. Here was a royal icon who stepped from the gilded picture frame to reach out and embrace the sick and the maimed, the lonely victims of war and of disease. And who herself knew grief: the desolation of a broken marriage and betrayal, the anguish of separation from her children, the fear of being pursued and knowing that her life would never be her own again.

There are more than 150 photographs and text by Anthony Holden illuminating the key moments of her thirty-six years of hope, despair, devotion and hope again.

Holden was a friend of the Princess and met privately with her shortly before the tragedy in Paris. He brings a uniquely informed perspective to this new account of her life. He writes of her desertion by her mother, her courtship and royal marriage, her disillusionment with the marriage, her selfless pursuit of often unpopular causes, her qualities as a mother, her beauty and charisma and the powerful influence she had begun to exert on political and religious leaders around the world.

The photographs reflect the great themes that characterized Diana's life, but also her relationship with the camera, and with the media in their various aspects; her love of dance and of the joys of life in general; and much else. Above all, the pictures give us a record of her extraordinary capacity to convey by a touch and a look her love for the troubled individual and for humanity. In memory of Diana, Random House will donate half of its profits from the sales of this book to the Pediatric AIDS Foundation-the leading national nonprofit foundation that funds and conducts critical pediatric AIDS research worldwide. It is a fitting memorial to one of the most appealing figures of our time.