Her Lotus Year

China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson

By: Paul French

Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times bestselling author Paul French examines a controversial and revealing period in the early life of the legendary Wallis, Duchess of Windsor—her one year in China.

Before she was the Duchess of Windsor, Bessie Wallis Warfield was Mrs. Wallis Spencer, wife of Earl “Win” Spencer, a US Navy aviator. From humble beginnings in Baltimore, she rose to marry a man who gave up his throne for her. But what made Wallis Spencer, Navy Wife, the woman who could become the Duchess of Windsor? The answers lie in her one-year sojourn in China.

In her memoirs, Wallis described her time in China as her “Lotus Year,” referring to Homer’s Lotus Eaters, a group living in a state of dreamy forgetfulness, never to return home. Though faced with challenges, Wallis came to appreciate traditional Chinese aesthetics. China molded her in terms of her style and provided her with friendships that lasted a lifetime. But that “Lotus Year” would also later be used to damn her in the eyes of the British Establishment.

The British government’s supposed “China Dossier” of Wallis’s rumored amorous and immoral activities in the Far East was a damning concoction, portraying her as sordid, debauched, influenced by foreign agents, and unfit to marry a king. Instead, French, an award-winning China historian, reveals Wallis Warfield Spencer as a woman of tremendous courage who may have acted as a courier for the US government, undertaking dangerous undercover diplomatic missions in a China torn by civil war.

Her Lotus Year is an untold story in the colorful life of a woman too often maligned by history.

©2024 Paul French (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Where does an unhappily married woman go in 1924 to seek peace of mind? To China, for adventure and glamour. What happens to her after this mysterious “lotus year”? She becomes none other than the Duchess of Windsor. A fascinating and very fun read." –Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author of Lady Tan's Circle of Women and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

"Rumors have always swirled about the two ‘missing’ years Wallis Simpson spent in China. Here, China expert Paul French casts a detailed light on her stay, sifting fact from fiction, with some surprising conclusions." –Anne de Courcy, author of Husband Hunters

"Riveting and fascinating, Paul French has put flesh on the bones in his detailed account of what Wallis really did in her ‘Lotus Year.'" –Anne Sebba, New York Times bestselling author of That Woman

“I thought there was nothing left to learn about the Duchess of Windsor. But Paul French has proven me wrong in this book of fascinating revelations.” –Laurence Leamer, New York Times bestselling author of Capote’s Women

“Paul French’s expert knowledge of China brings a fresh and humanising perspective to Wallis Simpson, exposing some myths and filling an important gap in the literature.” –Andrew Lownie, bestselling author of Traitor King