Anne Glenconner Books in Order

For the royal memoir that made her famous: Lady in Waiting → Whatever Next?
If you want her later reflections and advice: Whatever Next? → Manners and Mischief
If you'd rather begin with fiction: Murder On Mustique → A Haunting at Holkham
For a lighter, more social read: Lady Glenconner's Picnic Papers

Anne Glenconner was born in 1932, the eldest daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester, and grew up at Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Sandringham was close enough that the royal family was part of her childhood world, and she knew Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret from an early age. That closeness to the Crown would later shape both her public life and her writing.

Her life looked gilded from the outside, but it was never tidy.

As a young woman she was presented at court, then served as a maid of honour at Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953. In 1956 she married Colin Tennant, later Lord Glenconner, and became a mother of five. Her married life took her between great houses, the Scottish Borders, and Mustique in the Caribbean. She and her husband became closely linked with the island as it developed into a private retreat known for glamour, strong personalities, and no shortage of drama.

In 1971 she became one of Princess Margaret's ladies-in-waiting, a role she kept until the princess's death in 2002. That meant travel, ceremony, and an unusual view of royal life, but Glenconner's books are often most interesting when they get practical. She notices who is keeping the day on track, who is making a scene, and who is quietly holding everything together.

She came to writing very late, which is part of what makes her career so striking.

After a friend encouraged her to put her memories on the page, she published Lady in Waiting in her late eighties. The memoir became a bestseller and introduced a wide audience to her clear, dry, unshowy voice. She has said she wanted to set down her own memories of Princess Margaret, not just leave the story to other people's versions. Readers came for the royal connection, but many stayed for the tougher parts of the book, including her difficult marriage, family losses, and the rigid expectations placed on women of her generation.

She then moved into fiction with Murder On Mustique and A Haunting at Holkham. Both novels lean on places she knew intimately, one on a storm-bound Caribbean island, the other in a wintry country house full of wartime echoes, hidden spaces, and old loyalties. They suit readers who like classic mysteries with strong settings and a sharp eye for how privileged households work behind closed doors.

Her later books widen the picture. Whatever Next? returns to memoir and reflection, drawing lessons from marriage, motherhood, grief, friendship, entertaining, and old age without turning preachy. Lady Glenconner's Picnic Papers is a sociable collection built around outdoor meals, memories, and recipes, while Manners and Mischief arranges stories and advice in an A to Z form, mixing etiquette, humour, and a lifetime's worth of observation.

What ties all her books together is not just access to famous people. It is her steadiness. She writes about class, duty, family, loss, survival, and the strange comedy that can sit beside real sadness. There are royal tours, glittering dinners, and well-known names, yes, but also the everyday work of coping, adapting, and carrying on when life turns rough.

Now in her nineties, Glenconner still lives in Norfolk, near the estate that shaped her early life. She has become, quite late and a little unexpectedly, a writer people turn to for stories that are full of anecdote, honest about pain, and very alert to human absurdity. That late start suits her. Her books feel like the work of someone who has seen a great deal, survived more than most, and finally decided to tell the story in her own brisk way.