Copies of Earl Spencer’s explosive new book on Princess Diana have been stolen from a lorry just days before its exclusive serialisation in the Daily Mail.
The memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, contains fresh claims about Diana’s profoundly unhappy marriage to the then Prince of Wales.
It also recounts the turmoil that gripped the Royal Family in the wake of her death in a car crash nearly 30 years ago.
A publishing insider said last night: ‘Earl Spencer has kept his silence for nearly 30 years and what he has to say about the King’s reaction when Diana died is utterly devastating.’
In a remarkable twist, the Mail can reveal that a truck carrying thousands of copies was broken into after being left overnight in a lay-by in the Netherlands earlier this week.
Only four copies were taken. The books had been sealed in black plastic to conceal their contents, but publishing sources believe the theft may have been a bold attempt to obtain the year’s most eagerly awaited title before its release.
Dutch police are investigating the unexplained break-in. Industry figures have speculated that those behind it could have been anything from opportunistic criminals to a misguided but exceptionally well-informed Royal Family supporter.
‘It’s extremely suspicious,’ one publishing source said last night. ‘Nothing like this has ever happened before. This is probably the biggest book of the year and the security surrounding it has been incredibly tight.’
Earl Spencer’s explosive new book about his sister, Princess Diana, has been targeted by thieves; he is pictured in March.
The cover of the memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister. The book will be serialised exclusively in the Daily Mail.
The memoir includes revelations about Princess Diana’s deeply unhappy marriage with the then Prince of Wales (Charles and Diana are pictured in 1985)
‘Every possible precaution has been taken to prevent it from being leaked ahead of its serialisation. Therefore this unprecedented incident is being taken extremely seriously.’
Swan Song is due to be published worldwide next Tuesday – in the UK by Penguin Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin Random House – with the Mail publishing an exclusive serialisation before the memoir is available in bookshops.
Described as ‘historic’ and ‘extraordinarily moving’, the memoir is a deeply personal account of Earl Spencer’s relationship with his older sibling and of her failed marriage.
It also provides unprecedented insight into the seismic week following Diana’s death in August 1997, during which the House of Windsor was engulfed by a global wave of public grief and anger.
Buckingham Palace is understood to be braced for a string of shocking revelations that threaten to reopen the wounds of the former Prince and Princess of Wales’s highly acrimonious split and eventual divorce.
The Mail understands that a lorry with the books left a printing plant in central Europe on Monday on its way to a warehouse in the Netherlands before copies were distributed to Dutch bookshops.
At some point that evening the driver parked in a lay-by deep in the Dutch countryside to sleep. At around 8am he found the lorry had been broken into but, mysteriously, only a handful of wrapped copies of Swan Song were missing.
Shocked Penguin bosses in London were only told about the break-in at 3.30pm yesterday.
It would not be the first time that a major book has been stolen just before publication. In 2003, a lorry with more than 7,000 copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth in the fantasy series, was stolen from a warehouse on Merseyside.
Ahead of the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death, Earl Spencer has vowed that his book, which will be published around the world and translated into 12 languages, will correct ‘untruths’ that have been told about his sister.
The Earl, 62, delivered a raw and defiant eulogy during Diana’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, which was broadcast to a worldwide audience of 2.5billion.