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The Royals | 
 enlarge | Author: Kitty Kelley
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $7.98 (100%)
New (23) Used (83) Collectible (8) from $0.01
Rating:  74 reviews
Sales Rank: 281878
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 784
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0446605786
Dewey Decimal Number: 941.085092
EAN: 9780446605786
ASIN: 0446605786
Publication Date: October 1, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
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Amazon.com Review
The killer quill of Kitty Kelley, who skewered Jackie Onassis, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy Reagan, goes for royal blood in her latest tell-all biography, The Royals. Fans of the 1992 book Diana used to bash her in-laws--Andrew Morton's Diana: Her True Story--and Prince Charles's 1995 riposte--Jonathan Dimbleby's The Prince of Wales--will detect much familiar material. So will anyone who's ever read a newspaper. Even so, Kelley has a great eye for the salable quote and anecdote, and her book makes for handy one-stop gossip shopping. Here are a few of the nasty allegations Kelley collects in a history of Britain's top dogs: though the royals may love their corgis more than their children and spouses, they pinch the poor pooches' posteriors to make them bark into the phone to amuse the royals at the other end of the line. Also, the Queen Mother may have been born out of wedlock, and her daughter, Queen Elizabeth, may have been conceived by artificial insemination. There are dozens of other stinky zingers in Kelley's book, mostly from anonymous sources. The late Princess Diana comes off the best, even though Kelley suggests that she may have shoved her 58-year-old stepmother down the stairs. Diana met her last lover, Dodi, after The Royals went to press, so there's nothing in it about them--though Kelley does relate previous 100 m.p.h. chases and press encounters ending in gore. It was a long, sad story leading up to the last crash, and Kelley tells the family's worst enemies' account of it in a tone colder than the royals themselves.
Product Description
After four years of exhaustive research and over 1,000 interviews, Kitty Kelley has gone behind palace walls to provide the first three-dimensional, comprehensive, and even-handed portrait of the men and women who make up the British royal family. Features two 16-page photo inserts.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 69 more reviews...
 Just Say "no". August 18, 2008
To anyone with a serious interest in recent British history, absolutely avoid this book like the plague. The author lost me in the first chapter when she depicts King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on their famous and important visit to Washington DC in June of 1939, as living a life of lavish abandon while their subjects suffered wartime privation at home.
Too bad the war didn't start till September, Ms. Kelley!
After this outright lie, written for no other reason than to blacken the characters involved and tell an "interesting" story, needless to say, it was impossible to take anything else the author had to say very seriously. This book is meant for the readers of "the National Enquirer", and anyone else to whom such trivial things as dates and correct chronology of events are not important. Is it any wonder that publication was banned in the United Kingdom and this rag is to be found on the twenty five cent reject shelf?
Nuff said.
 Good book. Good Seller. July 22, 2008
I bought this book when it first came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn't sold in England and I made the mistake of loaning it to a Brit I worked with at the time. I never saw the book again. A decade or so later, I wanted to read The Royals again and found it on Amazon's used books. The book arrived quickly and in exactly the condition described by the seller. I'm very pleased to have the book again.
Kitty Kelley: Garbage Recycler July 20, 2008
This is the first Kitty Kelley book I've ever read (I saw it on a family member's bookshelf and I felt like slumming), and it will be the last. This woman is not a biographer: she is a human garbage recycler. And a lousy writer at that.
I hold no brief for the British royal family, although I do not object to the institution and find it an interesting if quaint relic of yesteryear. But this disorganized, poorly-written collection of gossip, innuendo, and previously-reported/disclosed information is pretty trashy stuff. There is nothing positive in this portrayal of the Royal Family, only a highly selective collection of slurs. Kelley obviously operates on the principle of, "If you can't say anything nasty, don't say anything at all." She certainly does not hold herself to any journalistic standard of verifying sources.
Kelley is obsessed with sex: who is sleeping with whom, who is gay, who likes to watch porn. And sex is the entire focus of this book. About the institution of the British monarchy itself - a fascinating and complex subject - the reader learns little; Kelley is more interested, for example, in the sexual preferences of the Queen Mother's staff than she is in the Queen Mother herself.
The writing is atrocious. Kelley repeats herself frequently - we get the same information about Phillip's extramarital exploits in at least three different places - and the book's lack of organization muddles the chronology of events. The author's use of similes is trite (a situation "smelled worse than a dead possum under the porch") and her syntax is careless. Worst of all, little of the sensational information we are treated to comes from the author's own investigation; she relies heavily on other published sources and the narrative is replete with thrice-told tales. The entire book gives the impression of being thrown together in a hurry and with little care.
I felt slightly soiled after I finished this prurient tabloid hit-piece. The only thing that kept me going was the same impulse that makes one rubberneck at a bad traffic accident. Only recommended to those with a strong stomach and limited intelligence.
No wonder you can't buy this in England May 4, 2006
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book while big is full of lies and no wonder it isn't available in England because if it where the Queen would be all over it for the lies that it says about the royals.
Here are just some of the things that Kitty Kelly says in the book that are not true
1.The Queen Mum was illegitimate-she was the 8th of 9 children and her parents were married long before she was born
2.The Queen Mum had to be impregnated by turkey baser to have Elizabeth and Margret
3. Princess Margret was an anti-Semite because she walked out of Schindler's List
4.Prince Harry is not Prince Charles' son- so not true. Harry's maternal grandfather had red hair and Princess Diana did not meet Harry's supposed father until he was already at least one year old
Do not bother even reading this book. There are much better, more accurate books out there about the royal family.
I loved every page of this book! February 27, 2006
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I love reading about the royal family and I just loved this book! I have read several books about Diana so I knew the history there but I never knew what an awful mother the Queen is! And I didn't realize how everything has to be approved by her! Nor did I realize what a womanizer Price Philip was and all the mistresses he had over the years!
Would highly recommend if you like reading about the Windsor Family.
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