As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate disclosure.

Home / People / Edward VIII

Historical person

Edward VIII

1894–1972

Edward VIII was king of the United Kingdom in 1936 before abdicating in order to marry Wallis Simpson. His short reign and later role as Duke of Windsor made him a controversial figure in twentieth-century royal and political history.

Edward VIII also held the offices or ranks of British prince, Prince of the United Kingdom, Duke of Cornwall, and Duke of Rothesay. Edward VIII belonged to the House of Windsor and operated within United Kingdom; United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Edward VIII was born in White Lodge and died in 16th arrondissement of Paris.

Piers Brendon’s Edward VIII (Penguin Monarchs) traces the popularity and restlessness of the Prince of Wales through his relationship with Wallis Simpson and the abdication that defined his reign. John Boyne’s Next of Kin sets a private scheme of blackmail and inheritance against that constitutional crisis, treating royal scandal as information that can be exploited. Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ The Gathering Storm follows the accession and almost immediate confrontation over the king’s proposed marriage, while The Phoenix shows the Morland family living through the social and political unease of the years leading into his reign. Peter Ackroyd’s Innovation places the abdication within the wider transformation of twentieth-century monarchy and British public life.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Edward VIII (6 series)

Morland Dynasty in Order

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles 36 books 4.4(27,265)

The Morland Dynasty is a thirty-six-book family saga tracing the fictional Morlands of Yorkshire from 1434 to the approach of the Second World War. Beginning with the marriage of Robert Morland and Eleanor, a ward of the Beaufort family, the sequence follows successive generations as Morland Place grows…

All books in this series

Her Royal Spyness in Order

by Rhys Bowen 20 books 4.1(369,431)

The Her Royal Spyness mysteries follow Lady Georgiana Rannoch, a penniless minor royal trying to support herself in 1930s Britain. Her distant place in the succession repeatedly makes her useful to the royal family, who send her to watch unsuitable guests, prevent scandals and carry out discreet assignments.…

All books in this series

Wyndham and Banerjee Series in Order

by Abir Mukherjee 6 books 4.2(61,514)

Abir Mukherjee’s Wyndham and Banerjee series follows Captain Sam Wyndham, a British veteran and former Scotland Yard detective, and Surendranath “Surrender-not” Banerjee, one of the few Indian officers in the Imperial Police, through the final decades of British rule in India. Beginning in Calcutta in 1919 and moving…

All books in this series

Tom Wilde in Order

by Rory Clements 8 books 4.3(42,038)

The Tom Wilde series follows an American-born Cambridge history professor drawn into British and Allied intelligence work from the crises of 1936 through the Second World War and the early Cold War. The novels combine espionage with political extremism, scientific research, royal scandal, propaganda and contested wartime memory.…

All books in this series

Traitors in Order

by Michael Ridpath 2 books 4.0(1,083)

Traitors follows Englishman Conrad de Lancey and his German Oxford friend Theo von Hertenberg through the conspiracies surrounding Hitler’s Germany on the eve and opening months of the Second World War. Friendship, patriotism and conscience repeatedly pull them into contacts between British intelligence and German officers who believe…

All books in this series

Detective Sebastian Wolff Series in Order

by Rory Clements 2 books 4.5(2,071)

The Detective Sebastian Wolff series follows a Munich police detective attempting to investigate crime as Nazi rule destroys judicial independence. Beginning in the mid-1930s, the novels place disappearances, murder and political violence inside propaganda spectacles, party rivalries and the personal compromises demanded by dictatorship. Wolff’s professional duty repeatedly…

All books in this series

Standalone books

Standalone books featuring Edward VIII (3 books)

Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Edward VIII (2 books)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.