When Edwina Ashley, god-daughter of Edward VII, came out in 1920 she was the most intriguing and intelligent of the debutantes of her day. When her grandfather, Sir Ernest Cassell, died the following year she also became the richest. In 1922, she married Louis Mountbatten, and embarked upon a career that kept her in the public eye for the rest of her life. Hitherto, accounts of her life have seen her only as Mountbatten's wife. Janet Morgan, with full co-operation from the family, has set the record straight. She discusses her glamorous years of parties and travels, her numerous affairs, and the way in which the war gave her great energy a focus. She worked tirelessly for the Joint War Organization of the Red Cross and St John's Ambulance. After the Japanese surrender she toured the Southeast Asia prison camps organizing medical supplies and the return of POWs. There follows the climax of the Mountbattens' career: their time in India as the Viceroy and Vicereine. Janet Morgan is the first to have seen the correspondence between Edwina and Nehru and she makes full use of it to describe their important relationship - the most intense of Edwina's life.
