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9781510782563

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Reviews

Praise for Princess Margaret and the Curse ""No one has understood Margaret until now."" —Milton Gendel, American photographer and art critic “Like Secrest's books on Dali, Sondheim, Schiaparelli and Frank Lloyd Wright, this book is going to be another best seller.” —Marvin Ross Friedman Praise for Meryle Secrest “A good reason for not achieving fame as artist, politician, critic, fashion designer, et al. is to avoid Meryle Secrest’s deep dive into your id, ego, and superego.  Conventional biographies frame a narrative, Secrest exposes what makes her high-achieving subject’s tick, from birth (and even in the womb) to death.  I have read most, if not all, of Meryle’s amazing books and have never failed to marvel at her revelations.” —Michael Findlay, poet, essayist, and author of The Value of Art: Money, Power, Beauty, Seeing Slowly: Looking at Modern Art, and Portrait of the Art Dealer Praise for the Works of Meryle Secrest Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography  ""Incisive, sympathetic, demonstrates great skill in unpicking the web of myths that Schiaparelli wove to reveal the shape of the woman beneath."" —Economist “Secrest's biography is a wonderful insight into a life that history hasn't remembered as well as it should have.” —Vogue Duveen: A Life in Art   ""By far the best account of Joseph Duveen's life . . . Rich in detail, scrupulously researched and sympathetically written."" —The New York Review of Books Stephen Sondheim  ""A major biography . . . Secrest spent dozens of hours interviewing Sondheim, and he talks with unprecedented candor . . . Even walking Sondheim encyclopedias will find news here."" —Newsweek ""A must read for anyone interested in the musical theater."" —Jeremy Gerard, New York Magazine Frank Lloyd Wright “Captivating . . . Splendid . . . Absorbing . . . A life that no novelist could improve on,full of drama,tragedy, extravagance and inexplicable luck, both good and bad.” —Witold Rybezynski, The Washington Post Kenneth Clark ""Brilliant, attention-riveting . . . An enthralling biography."" —Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal Being Bernard Berenson  ""The liveliest evocation of this strangely conflict-ridden man that has yet been written, a portrait with the unmistakable ring of psychological truth."" —Robert Hughes, The New York Review of Books ""A remarkable tour de force . . . Scrupulously researched and never boring."" —Harold Acton, The Washington Post “How skilfully & sensitively [Secrest writes] . . . [She manages] to build up a stereoscopic but coherent and entirely convincing portrait, which I recognize as authentic and, I am sure, is psychologically correct; and [she makes] it—in spite of some dark shadows—sympathetic.” —Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper, leading British historian of his day.

Praise for the Work of Meryle Secrest Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography  ""Incisive, sympathetic, demonstrates great skill in unpicking the web of myths that Schiaparelli wove to reveal the shape of the woman beneath."" —Economist “Secrest's biography is a wonderful insight into a life that history hasn't remembered as well as it should have.” —Vogue Duveen: A Life in Art   ""By far the best account of Joseph Duveen's life . . . Rich in detail, scrupulously researched and sympathetically written."" —The New York Review of Books Stephen Sondheim  ""A major biography . . . Secrest spent dozens of hours interviewing Sondheim, and he talks with unprecedented candor . . . Even walking Sondheim encyclopedias will find news here."" —Newsweek ""A must read for anyone interested in the musical theater."" —Jeremy Gerard, New York Magazine Frank Lloyd Wright “Captivating . . . Splendid . . . Absorbing . . . A life that no novelist could improve on,full of drama,tragedy, extravagance and inexplicable luck, both good and bad.” —Witold Rybezynski, The Washington Post Kenneth Clark ""Brilliant, attention-riveting . . . An enthralling biography."" —Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal Being Bernard Berenson  ""The liveliest  evocation of this strangely conflict-ridden man that has yet been written, a portrait with the unmistakable ring of psychological truth."" —Robert Hughes, The New York Review of Books ""A remarkable tour de force . . . Scrupulously researched and never boring."" —Harold Acton, The Washington Post “You manage to build up a stereoscopic but coherent and entirely convincing  portrait, which I recognize as authentic and psychologically correct; and you make it—in spite of some dark shadows—sympathetic.” —Hugh Trevor-Roper, Regius Professor, Oxford University 

Author Information

Meryle Secrest is known for her many biographies of famous men and women in the arts & humanities. She was born in 1930, by coincidence the same year as Princess Margaret Rose, and grew up in Bath, England. After graduating, she and her parents emigrated to Hamilton, Ontario, where she began her career as women's editor with the Hamilton News a year later. She received an award as ""Most Promising Young Writer"" from the Canadian Women's Press Club at the age of twenty and continued at papers in Britain, Ohio and at the Washington Post, where she spent the next twelve years. At the Post she specialized in profile interviews with the famous: Gregory Peck, Katherine Anne Porter, Gian Carlo Menotti, Artur Rubinstein, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Lady Bird Johnson, among them. In 1974, she published her first biography, Between Me and Life: A Biography of Romaine Brooks. The book was reviewed by Anais Nin in the New York Times and included in the American Library Association's ""Thirty Most Notable Books"" of 1974. In 1976 she left the Post to concentrate on writing biography full time. Her landmark study, Being Bernard Berenson, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Awards in 1980. Her books on Salvador Dali and Stephen Sondheim were best sellers as is her book on Frank Lloyd Wright. Additionally, she has received many grants and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In November 2006, President Bush presented Meryle Secrest with the Presidential National Humanities Medal for her services to biography in the Oval Office at the White House. She resides in Washington, DC.

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