It’s been more than eighteen months since Prince Harry’s Spare was released. There’s still no paperback edition. Given the sales for the hardback, you would think the publisher would be very eager to release a paperback edition, regardless of whether Harry wanted that or not. You would also think that given the despicable behavior of his family, Harry would want to include some new chapters. Several weeks ago, the Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle column pointed out the missing paperback edition and theorized that Harry had “run out” of terrible things to say about his family. Now the Mail claims – seemingly out of nowhere? – that the publisher has announced that there are no plans for a paperback edition.
Prince Harry’s publishers have revealed that there is no plan for a paperback edition of his hugely contentious memoirs Spare, a sign believes the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden, that the Duke realises how much he has hurt the Royal Family.
‘Harry knows how much damage he has done, we have seen him try to mend fences with his family, all the business about ringing his father on his birthday,’ he tells Palace Confidential.
‘I really do imagine that he wouldn’t want to do that all over again.’ The Mail on Sunday’s Charlotte Griffiths meanwhile believes that Harry won’t regret the ‘cathartic’ experience of writing it, but ‘of course he’ll regret how it was received’. However, she also explains why ‘the blame won’t be on himself’.
It would probably surprise the Mail’s merry band of royalists that Harry, at no point, expressed regret for Spare. He was proud of the book, proud of telling his story and proud to correct a lot of tabloid false-narratives. The British media was pleased with the book too – it gave them months of screeching, hysterical coverage. Royal biographers had to furiously rewrite their books given Harry’s historical document, so they were mad (and yet they’re all still running variations of Harry’s story). All of which to say… the Mail is talking out of their ass, right? There’s no way they got a confirmation from the publisher that there will be no paperback forthcoming. I do wonder if maybe the paperback edition is being planned for the fall, or for the Christmas season. Originally, Spare was supposed to come out in December 2022, so it would be “two years later” or thereabouts.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid. Covers courtesy of People Magazine and Penguin Random House.