Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece

by Hugo Vickers

Paperback, 2003

Status

Available

Publication

St. Martin's Griffin (2003), Edition: First, 512 pages

Description

In 1953, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Alice was dressed from head to foot in a long grey dress and a grey clock, and a nun's veil. Amidst all the jewels, and velvet and coronets, and the fine uniforms, she exuded an unworldly simplicity. As one who witnessed her process alone up the long aisle of the abbey put it, she looked as though she were walking into eternity. Seated with the royal family, she was a part of them, yet somehow distanced from them. In as much as she is remembered at all today, it is as this shadowy figure in grey nun's clothes...

Rating

(25 ratings; 3.4)

User reviews

LibraryThing member threadnsong
This is a pretty good book. I give it 3 stars in part because the subject matter did not hold my interest, but it does involve the treatment of people with physical handicaps and with early psychotherapy.

The book opens with the birth of Alice while her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, stands by.
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There is even a photo of the 4 generations seated together with an older Queen looking as regal as ever. Vickers takes great pains to keep the proper titles and names of royalty (hence Alice's official name being "Princess Andrew" because of her marriage to Prince Andrea of Greece). He also has extensive endnotes and footnotes to capture the names of minor individuals who are mentioned in a paragraph or series of events.

All in all I was captured by this book. Though I'm not a student of modern European royalty, the events of the late 19th and on through the middle 20th century all touched this princess's life: Queen Victoria, the Great War, the Bolshevik Revolution (where her relations were killed as they were part of the extended Russian Royal Family), the downfall of many royal families after the Second World War, and even modern psychotherapy. This latter is a surprising event coming as it does in the middle years of Alice's life - her symptoms of extreme religiosity, her commitment to a mental health facility in Switzerland, and her final regaining of sanity thanks to some quite ordinary people.

She gave birth to four daughters and a son, who became Prince Philip of Greece the Prince Consort of Queen Elizabeth II. The separation he endured from his mother during her insanity and time in a hospital is also mentioned and might certainly point to a certain amount of his emotional distance.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2002

Physical description

9 inches

ISBN

9780312302399
Page: 0.3657 seconds