Letters written by Diana, Princess of Wales have been sold at auction for over £161,000.
On the auction block were 32 letters, each sold separately in a sale titled: ‘Diana, The Private Correspondence of a Princess.’
The correspondence was between Diana and two of her friends, Susie and Tarek Kassem. The notes span three years from before Diana divorced the now King Charles III to just afterwards. They are all written on Diana’s Kensington Palace stationery.
In one note that sold for £28,000, Diana speaks about the distress the divorce is causing her: “If I’d known a year ago what I’d experience going through this divorce, I never would have consented. It’s desperate and ugly.”
One buyer bid £15,000 for a note where Diana apologises for the late cancellation of going to the opera because the stress of the divorce was too overwhelming.
In a post-divorce note, a happy Diana wrote: “I am more than happy to have my freedom & reckon that I’m very fortunate to have a second chance! Lots of nice things have come my way and it’s fun… who’d have thought!” That letter sold for £3,800.
But a two-page, poignant letter from December 1996 was the bestseller at £31,000. Diana thanked Susie for the flowers she sent for the holidays and expressed that she did not love Christmas. Diana added: “I hope 1997 will be an easier year for us all.”
Eight months later, Diana would be dead, killed in a car crash in Paris.
Susie Kassem and Diana became friends when they met at Royal Brompton Hospital in 1995. Kassem was a magistrate and volunteer, and Diana was visiting a friend. Their friendship grew, and the Kassem’s would host Diana at their home or sneak out to out-of-the-way restaurants to avoid the paparazzi.
The Kassem’s, now in their 70s, decided to auction the letters and avoid passing the responsibility onto their children and grandchildren. Proceeds from the auction will go to charities that were important to Diana and Susie.
Lay’s Auctioneers conducted the sale and issued a statement, describing the letters as a look into Diana’s personality: “The Kassems have kept some of their more personal and confidential letters, but largely this collection of over 30 letters and notecards illustrate Diana’s immensely warm and loving disposition in a charming and delightful manner. Some letters do touch on the enormous stress she was experiencing during periods of very public heartbreak, yet her strength of character and her generous and witty disposition shine through. It is an extraordinarily poignant collection of correspondence, written by one of the most important and influential women of the 20th century, and documents one of her most valued and significant friendships during the last two years of her life.”
