A Groundbreaking New Perspective of Princess Margaret by Renowned Biographer Meryle Secrest Meryle Secrest, distinguished biographer in the arts and humanities, and recipient of a White House Medal, has turned her focus to royalty. In Princess Margaret and the Curse , she has put the conventional view of a much-reviled Princess on its head. Her latest study, which she considers more of an investigation than a biography as such, proposes that nobody knows the truth about the fabled, doomed Princess. She is the first person to have looked at Princess Margaret in a particular family context. That is to say with reference to her mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the daughter of a famous, hard-drinking Scottish family that had inhabited an ancient dwelling, Glamis Castle, for centuries. Her older brothers were already renowned for their prowess in alcohol consumption. Decades later, once she became Queen Mother, this Elizabeth would begin to imbibe by eleven in the morning. She was already lamenting the loss of her "drinking powers" when, because of severe bouts of morning sickness during her first pregnancy with the future Queen Elizabeth in 1926, she could not drink. Four years later, while pregnant with Princess Margaret in 1930, she was not so handicapped. Doctors believed it was perfectly safe for a mother-to-be to drink, so she drank. The doctors were wrong. But it took another forty-three years, until 1973, before new studies established that alcohol in any amount was poisonous to the developing human being. The effect is lifelong. We now know that victims’ growth is stunted (Margaret stopped growing at five feet), and their skeletal structures are fragile. They get sick sooner and age faster. There are characteristic emotional differences, too. They never develop maturity of mind. They remain subject to sudden tantrums, rages, are poor judges of character, and particularly prone to run and hide, as Princess Margaret tried to do all her life. They may be as intelligent and gifted as she was, but mulish and fly into a rage. They are, it turns out, exactly like the person she became. None of this has ever been recognized, let alone understood. With this study, the author places Margaret's life in its proper perspective. It seems particularly sad that someone expected to be perfection itself in her manners and behavior should have been born in the one situation where perfection was, in fact, impossible. It is time we looked at this public figure from a new and more forgiving frame of mind, and with a new understanding.   Praise for Princess Margaret and the Curse "No one has understood Margaret until now." —Milton Gendel, American photographer and art critic “Like Secrest's books on Dali, Sondheim, Schiaparelli and Frank Lloyd Wright, this book is going to be another best seller.” —Marvin Ross Friedman Praise for Meryle Secrest “A good reason for not achieving fame as artist, politician, critic, fashion designer, et al . is to avoid Meryle Secrest’s deep dive into your id, ego, and superego.  Conventional biographies frame a narrative, Secrest exposes what makes her high-achieving subject’s tick, from birth (and even in the womb) to death.  I have read most, if not all, of Meryle’s amazing books and have never failed to marvel at her revelations.” —Michael Findlay, poet, essayist, and author of The Value of Art: Money, Power, Beauty , Seeing Slowly: Looking at Modern Art , and Portrait of the Art Dealer Praise for the Works of Meryle Secrest Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography   "Incisive, sympathetic, demonstrates great skill in unpicking the web of myths that Schiaparelli wove to reveal the shape of the woman beneath." — Economist “Secrest's biography is a wonderful insight into a life that history hasn't remembered as well as it should have.” — Vogue Duveen: A Life in Art    "By far the best account of Joseph Duveen's life . . . Rich in detail, scrupulously researched and sympathetically written." — The New York Review of Books Stephen Sondheim   "A major biography . . . Secrest spent dozens of hours interviewing Sondheim, and he talks with unprecedented candor . . . Even walking Sondheim encyclopedias will find news here." —Newsweek "A must read for anyone interested in the musical theater." —Jeremy Gerard, New York Magazine Frank Lloyd Wright  “Captivating . . . Splendid . . . Absorbing . . . A life that no novelist could improve on, full of drama, tragedy, extravagance and inexplicable luck, both good and bad.” — Witold Rybczynski, The Washington Post Kenneth Clark "Brilliant, attention-riveting . . . An enthralling biography." —Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal Being Bernard Berenson   "The liveliest evocation of this strangely conflict-ridden man that has yet been written, a portrait with the unmistakable ring of psychological truth." —Robert Hughes, The New York Review of Books "A remarkable tour de force . . . Scrupulously resear