June 12 (Bloomberg) -- ``If you slapped an Edwardian-style picture hat on the head of Camilla Parker Bowles, you would be struck by her resemblance to Prince Charles's adored nanny,'' Tina Brown observes early on in ``The Diana Chronicles,'' her biography of the late Princess of Wales. This is a book from which no one emerges entirely unscathed.

A thoroughly modern media construct, Diana was both a product of and a catalyst in our celebrity-obsessed age. Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, is uniquely qualified to tell this sad, tinselly tale of mutual infatuation turned sour.

Delving into her voluminous address book, Brown has persuaded a host of previously untapped sources to talk, from servants to John Travolta, who recalls his 1985 turn on the White House dance floor with the Princess. The author matches their revelations with sharp new insights and tart asides.

She portrays a badly educated yet determined young woman who was more interested in Charles's title than in Charles. Despite all that white ruffled lace on her wedding dress, Brown claims, she was less innocent in other ways as well -- she met Charles for two prenuptial trysts aboard the royal train. Sabrina Guinness, one of the prince's ex-girlfriends, recalls Diana as a teenage debutante flirting and giggling in his lap. (In Diana's version, Charles was all over her.)

Shy Di

William Tallon, aka Backstairs Billy, the Queen Mother's all-seeing, all-hearing servant for 50 years, offers a spry anecdote about the 19-year-old bride-to-be bicycling ``round and round, ringing the bell and singing: `I'm going to marry the Prince of Wales tomorrow.''' So much for received wisdom that Diana was led into the royal marriage like a lamb to slaughter.

Back in 1985, Brown wrote a cover story about Diana for Vanity Fair, which she was then editing. ``The Mouse That Roared'' lifted the veil on ``shy Di'' and, recasting her as a difficult woman, hinted at the neuroses that would flare up as her marriage disintegrated.

Though Brown thinks Charles began his affair with Camilla only after Diana drove him away with her eating disorders, she never loses sight of the mousy girl trembling behind the confident public face. Her book captures the pathos of a privileged yet neglected child who grew up into a mercurial, manipulative ``icon of blondeness'' bent on seeking validation in all the wrong places.

According to her brother, the Earl Spencer, Diana's love affair with the camera began in the wake of their parents' acrimonious divorce. After their father won custody of all four children, his only way of showing them affection was photographing them.

Fleet Street

Though Brown delights in skewering the aristocracy, she's truly riveting on Diana's most complex relationship: not with Charles or anyone else in the House of Windsor but with the media.

Having won the U.K. tabloids over with her winsome good looks (Fleet Street photographers ``lived for -- and on --Diana's smile''), she kept up the alliance throughout her marriage, striking poses and leaking stories. Later she began using her fame for humanitarian ends. By that point, though, she was no longer in control; ``shy Di'' had become ``Diana the hunted.''

Brown suggests that by the time of her death, at 36 in 1997, Diana had set her eye on a new life in America with the billionaire financier Theodore J. Forstmann, co-founder of Forstmann Little & Co., who was 57 at the time. ``Diana had the idea that we should get married, that I should run for president and she would be first lady,'' Forstmann told Brown. But the romance, he added, ``never really got off the ground.''

Big Deal

As Brown explains, ``He was closing one of his biggest deals, the acquisition of the Ziff Davis computer magazine empire for $1.4 billion, and was immediately plagued by unwelcome publicity.''

Brown views those frenetic August days when the princess was cavorting with Dodi Al-Fayed aboard his father's yacht as a kind of ``relapse,'' intended mainly to rile the palace.

Conspiracy theories, Charles's second marriage, even the blighted playground constructed in Diana's memory in Kensington Gardens: All have helped keep her as controversial in death as she was in life. The biographies over the past decade have tended to cast her as either unimpeachable ``people's princess'' or vindictive harpy intent on toppling the monarchy.

To Brown's immense credit, ``The Diana Chronicles'' seems to be irking both camps -- a sure sign she has struck a kind of balance. In the U.K., the Daily Mail has serialized the book, sending readers stampeding to the online message boards. Brown's version, they're certain, is wrong. They just can't agree on which one is right.

``The Diana Chronicles'' is published by Doubleday in the U.S. and Century in the U.K. (542 pages, $27.50, 18.99 pounds).

(Hephzibah Anderson is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Hephzibah Anderson at hephzibah_anderson@hotmail.com.

Last Updated: June 12, 2007 02:56 EDT