Adrian's new book The First Royal Media War: Edward VIII, the Abdication and the Press will soon be published globally by Pen & Sword History. It looks at the savage media war that was fought during the abdication crisis of 1936 and through its bitter aftermath. The crisis destroyed forever the wall of deferential press silence that had protected British royalty for a century and left as its legacy today's no-holds barred media environment in which royal family issues are fought out in a ruthless glare of global attention.

Edward VIII was the first celebrity monarch but neither his personal popularity nor the support of powerful newspaper tycoons was enough to save him when he clashed with a socially conservative government which refused to accept that he could marry a twice-divorced American. For the rest of his life he tried to persuade the world that he had been badly treated and forced off the throne by a coalition of establishment reactionaries.