Author and historian Charles Spencer will publish a new book about his late sister Diana, Princess of Wales, on September 22.
The memoir, titled The Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, will launch simultaneously across Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Ireland, the United States, and Canada. A Spanish language edition will follow one day later on September 23 across Spain and Latin America, published by Plaza & Janés, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
The release comes ahead of the 30th anniversary of Diana's death in August 2027. Spencer explained in a statement released by the publisher that he chose to write the book himself rather than endure reading opinions from others, noting that many of those accounts were built on falsehoods that had come to be accepted as truth over time.
Memoirs and portrayal
In the book, Spencer portrays the former Princess of Wales as a unique person who was full of vitality, love, charisma, and insecurities. He noted that she lived her life with extraordinary intensity and left the world in a much better state than she found it, despite dying far too soon.
Daniel Bunyard, an editor at Penguin Random House in the United Kingdom, described the upcoming publication as a book of historical importance that details the life of one of the most iconic and culturally significant figures of the 20th century from a privileged perspective of incomparable intimacy.
Charles Spencer, the ninth Earl Spencer, is the author of nine books, including four titles that reached the Sunday Times bestseller list. The first volume of his memoirs, A Very Private School, reached number one on the newspaper's bestseller list. He previously worked as a correspondent for NBC News between 1986 and 1995, presented television programmes for the History Channel, and currently writes as a columnist for the Financial Times.
Global publication and legacy
Translation rights for the memoir have already been sold in 12 additional languages. The book is scheduled for publication in Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and Quebec.
Diana, who was the first wife of King Charles III, died at age 36 in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. The vehicle carrying her and Dodi Al Fayed crashed into a concrete pillar in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel after departing the Ritz hotel while being followed by paparazzi.
The Spencer family has long-standing ties to the British aristocracy and royal family, residing at the family seat of Althorp in Northamptonshire. Diana became a global cultural icon following her 1981 marriage to then-Prince Charles, earning widespread international acclaim for her extensive charity work and public engagements before her tragic death.
