It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t have an opinion about Wallis Simpson — even harder to find someone with a good opinion of her. Even the staunch mutual devotion of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor loses some of its sheen when you know that they basically honeymooned with high-level Nazis, including Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels.
But what if you could take a look at Simpson before any of that — before she was thrust into the international spotlight or deemed a viper who sought to destroy the British monarchy. In the 1920s, Wallis Simpson was then Wallis Warfield Spencer, a young woman from Baltimore who was trying to repair her marriage to an American aviator stationed in the Pacific.
Now out of the air and posted to an administrative role, Lt. Commander “Win” Spencer was even less of a pleasant husband. Assigned to Hong Kong, Wallis decided to visit Win to see what could be salvaged of their relationship. Not much, as it turned out, but she still vaguely followed his routes up the Chinese coastline. They eventually agreed divorce was the best option and separated until they could finalize the paperwork. Wallis headed inland, to Peking.
It was 1920s Peking (now Beijing) that Wallis spent most of what she called her “lotus year.” She stayed with friends, began to ride horses, encamped in ancient temples, and practiced the art of buying antiques and jade. She learned how to be herself (rather than a military wife) and to consider a future happiness. She also learned she loved the (well-to-do) expatriate lifestyle. She had a modest alimony payment from Win but she lived in a stylish hutong with the very wealthy Herman and Kitty Rogers. She partied on rooftops with other nouveau riche, diplomats, and expatriots.
Peking in 1924 was a warren of international concessions amid a crumbling empire. The last dynasty recently ended and any number of warlord factions fought for supremacy. Many of these skirmishes took place outside the high walls of Peking. But for Wallis and her set, this violence wasn’t part of their privileged lifestyle.
The Peking Wallis knew was still largely devoid of Western-style nightclubs and cabarets, jazz was yet to arrive, there were no casinos, and only a cinema or two showing Hollywood movies. … Still,m for all the quarter’s confines, it was undoubtedly a cosmopolitan society. … And the quarter was also where much of the old gentry of the departed Qing dynasty could still be found. Chinese aristocrats of the pre-Republican era were still invited to legation dinners. ~ Pg. 213-14
But like the Roaring 20s everywhere, it wasn’t meant to last. Instability would hasten the end of her sojourn. By fall 1925, Wallis was back in America. It would be more than five years before the world would know her name — and before the British establishment would seek to malign her time in China.
Author Paul French has done his research in tracing Wallis’s time in the East. Through steamer manifests, letters, her own autobiography, and the memory of others, a timeline was pieced together. Based on timing and locations, French even suggests Wallis may have acted as a document courier under the cover of a Western tourist. The book really comes alive once Wallis settles in Peking. French is so conversant in the city in that era, descriptions come easily. It is clear he has an affinity for the ancient hutong architecture, much of which has now been lost. There is a certain romanticism for the time period, the lifestyle, the freewheeling nature of it all.
This is a new look at a famous figure, set against a very specific time and place. It brings new perspective to both Wallis Simpson and 1920s legation Peking.
My thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the review copy.
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (November 12, 2024)
Language: English
Hardcover: 320 pages
ISBN-10: 1250287472