Perhaps one of the unmentioned reasons for America's revolt against the crown in 1776 was our revulsion of their power to cancel publication of any book of their choosing (there have been exceptions) - primarily books they deem slanderous of The Firm. This certainly was the case in 1937 when the newly minted Duke of Windsor (previously Edward VIII) sought to block all further publication of Coronation Commentary (1937) by Geoffrey Dennis. He succeeded in doing so on grounds of libel - but not before hundreds of copies could be published.
"Early next month the whole world will take time out from its atom bombs and cold wars and financial worries to re-live for a day all the jeweled delight of an old-fashioned fairy tale. This fairy tale will be all the more significant because it happens to be true... In short, a young queen will be crowned in London... But, amid all the glitter and pomp, the one man who would normally be expected to be the most important guest will not have a roll to play - The Duke of Windsor."
"The Duke of Windsor is now 59. He has arrived at that age when a man begins to weigh his life and all that he has done with it...What can he remember? That having come to the throne the most beloved of all princes, the darling of a nation that would have followed him through hell-fire; he threw away the tiresome restraints of kingship, to gain what?"
Assorted snide stories concerning the Duke of Windsor - the world he made and the man he became:
"It is both sad and amusing to see a former King of England reduced by the woman he loves to a 'Little Man', to the rank of a meek husband. What should one do, laugh or cry, when one looks at the ex-Caesar in the role of handbag-carrier, a sort of walking ornament..."
"The 'real' world into which the Duke has entered by his 'own' free will is international café society, that glittering, gilded bubble floating above the stormy seas of history...The Duke lives a rather different life. An hour or so with one of those American businessmen he admires, following tips on the market, looking over the quotations in stocks and bonds, and he has nothing to trouble about for the day, or the next month or so, until another empty hour obtrudes itself in the almost ceaseless round of pleasure like a hole in time waiting to be plugged by something, anything."
