Fireside Chat with Jane Marguerite Tippett
Monday 22nd September at 18.30 | The Drawing Room and Zoom | £15.00 per person*
*Includes one glass Prosecco
*£10.00 for those joining via Zoom
It is hard for the Historian, Jane Marguerite Tippett, to find the exact words for how she felt on coming across, in a stash of research material, a shadow memoir of Edward VIII which he had personally written in parallel with his altogether more formal, ghosted memoir, ‘A King’s Story’, published in 1951. That is hard even though she is an alumna of Delaware and Oxford, and has worked for a number of families as a Private Archivist and Fine Art Curator.
This fresh material formed the basis for her acclaimed ‘Once A King; The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII’, about one of our most controversial (and brief) monarchs, abdicating and living in exile with Wallis Simpson, the source of great national instability whom he married. In the text, Jane uses the insight of her find to re-consider Edward’s part in events that shook the monarchy, the period before his decision to give up the throne, and his life subsequently. She also looks at how the actions of key figures influenced events through this new prism.
Join Jane for the first Fireside Chat of the Autumn when she will share the change of direction her find prompted her to take and was cause to reevaluate much of the conventional thinking about Edward VIII. Enjoy Jane’s perspective on the monarchy and the impact of Edward’s abdication, and how historians deal with these momentous events, and how finding fresh material decades later warrants a fresh pair of eyes. Share in a historian’s art and the impact of unearthing previously unconsidered material.
Then as is traditional for the Fireside Chat, as well as valued time with Jane by the fireside, reserve a place at supper afterwards with the author to consider in added depth her work to date, and future projects.