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The royal family are known for their love of novelty Christmas presents—lavatory seats, comedy mugs and singing toy hamsters have all been reported over the years—but the Royalist assumes that, this festive season, Queen Elizabeth won’t be unwrapping a copy of Prince Harry’s chunky hardback memoir, which promises to be a “heartfelt and intimate” account of his life in the royal family.
Millions of her subjects, however, probably will, after reports Monday that the memoir has been finished, handed in to the publishers, and signed off by lawyers.
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There had been speculation that the memoir had been delayed or even canceled as the publishers have not yet given a date for publication or announced a publicity schedule.
However there now seems every possibility that Penguin Random House will indeed have the book on shelves in time for the key Thanksgiving and Christmas sales.
The Sun reports that ghostwriter JR Moehringer, who co-authored Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open, finished the manuscript this summer.
A publishing source told The Sun: “The manuscript has been finished and gone through all of the legal processes. It’s done and out of Harry’s hands. The publishing date has been pushed back once but it is on track for the end of the year.”
Harry himself has said the book will be his story: “the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned… a firsthand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful.”
Royal author Christopher Andersen previously told The Daily Beast: “Prince Charles’ operatives have been scrambling for months to find out what other bombshells await, but to no avail. No one expected Harry’s book to be a valentine to his relatives. But you get the sense in the wake of the jubilee that now the gloves are truly off.”
And Harry biographer Duncan Larcombe, a former royal editor at The Sun, previously told The Daily Beast that uncertainty about the content of the book is preventing reconciliation between the feuding families, saying: “How can the royals welcome Harry back into the fold when he has effectively turned himself into a journalist? As long as that book hangs over them like a sword of Damocles, how can they be expected to extend an olive branch?
“Once the book is out, William will have to make a decision about what he is going to to do about Harry, but he is not going to do a thing until he knows what is on every page of that book. The reality is that if, as a senior member of the royal family, you have written a tell-all book, you have broken rule No. 1 of the royal family.”
Page Six reported last week that the book was coming out as planned this fall, with one source saying: “It’s juicy, that’s for sure,” and another commenting, “There’s a lot of new stories in there about the past that Harry has not spoken about before, about his childhood… there is some content in there that should make his family nervous.”
