The Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust are honoured to be hosting Andrew Lownie as he presents a talk on his Sunday Times Top 10 Bestselling Book – The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves.
Tuesday 17th October – Assembly Rooms 7-8pm
Pre-drinks in the Pump Room from 6.30pm
Signings ,Meet & Greet in the Pump Room from 8.15pm
DICKIE MOUNTBATTEN: A major figure behind his nephew Philip’s marriage to Queen Elizabeth II and instrumental in the Royal Family taking the Mountbatten name, he was Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia during World War II and the last Viceroy of India.
EDWINA MOUNTBATTEN: Once the richest woman in Britain and a playgirl who enjoyed numerous affairs, she emerged from World War II as a magnetic and talented humanitarian worker loved around the world.
From British high society to the South of France, from the battlefields of Burma to the Viceroy’s House, The Mountbattens is a rich and filmic story of a powerful partnership, revealing the truth behind a carefully curated legend.
Was Mountbatten one of the outstanding leaders of his generation, or a man over-promoted because of his royal birth, high-level connections, film-star looks and ruthless self-promotion? What is the true story behind controversies such as the Dieppe Raid and Indian Partition, the love affair between Edwina and Nehru, and Mountbatten’s assassination in 1979?
Based on over 100 interviews, research from dozens of archives and new information released under Freedom of Information requests, prize-winning historian Andrew Lownie, in this Sunday Times top ten bestseller, sheds new light on this remarkable couple.
Andrew Lownie was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was Dunster History Prizeman and President of the Union, before taking his Masters and doctorate at Edinburgh University. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he later returned to Cambridge as a visiting fellow at Churchill College.
He has been a bookseller, publisher, journalist , writing for the Times, Telegraph, Wall Street Journal , Spectator and Guardian, and since 1988 has run his own literary agency specialising in history and biography.
He is President of the Biographers Club, sits on the board of Biographers International Organisation and is a Trustee of the Campaign for Freedom of Information.
His books include biographies of the writer John Buchan, spy Guy Burgess, Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and a forthcoming life of Prince Andrew.
Join us for pre-drinks from 6.30pm or why not finish the evening with a personal book signing and meet and greet with the author himself, both at the Pump Room
