In a new book, The Diana Chronicles, Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and Tatler, gives a damning indictment of Diana’s character and life.

Brown claims to be a friend of the late Princess, having lunched with her in New York just weeks before she died. The book, written to coincide with the 10th anniversary of her death, is set to be a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic.

The book is significant because of the number and quality of the people who have spoken out for the first time. It comes out just two weeks before the Concert for Diana in July, and must be causing her two sons and the organizers some considerable consternation.

Since we don’t yet have a review copy of The Diana Chronicles, here are a few juicy snippets gleaned from a newspaper account, from which you’ll gather Tina Brown didn’t think very much of her :

“Diana was a spiteful and manipulative neurotic.”

“Diana wanted a ‘guy with a Gulfstream’ [a private aircraft]”

“She loved Charles’s title more than him.”

“Charles did love Diana and wanted her back.”

“She did not throw herself downstairs [when pregnant, as she claimed in the Morton book].”

“Diana ogled herself in newspapers.”

“She would never have married Dodi.”

Strong stuff, which adds to the mountain of contradictory reportage available on her life. When accounts of a person vary quite so much as Diana’s do, it usually reflects a person who tries to be all things to all people.