Paperback ‘Spare’ Release Emphasizes Prince Harry’s Ongoing ‘Cold War’ With the Royal Family, Not an ‘Olive Branch’
Prince Harry’s Spare is heading to shelves once again. After its initial January 2023 release, the publisher is giving it a slight refresh with a new edition. Importantly, however, there’s reportedly no new content, which a royal historian says isn’t an “olive branch.” Rather, they’ve argued it’s a sign the Duke of Sussex’s royal “cold war” is still raging.
‘Spare’ is being released in paperback
After being released in hardcover on Jan. 10, 2023, Penguin Random House is releasing Harry’s bombshell—and instant bestseller—memoir in paperback. Per a report from The Bookseller, the new edition is set to include a “newly designed package” but no new content, text, or images from Harry.
As in, no foreword on the book’s success or what’s happened in the years since he and ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer ended Spare with an epilogue about Harry and Meghan Markle’s return home to Montecito, California, after Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
The paperback edition of Spare debuts on Oct. 22, 2024, in the U.S. and on Oct. 24, 2024, in the U.K.
Harry could’ve been ‘conciliatory’ by including new content in ‘Spare’ paperback edition
According to Dr. Tessa Dunlop, a royal historian and expert, simply because no new information is set to be released in the paperback edition of Spare doesn’t mean it’s Harry’s way of extending a potential “olive branch” to King Charles III and Prince William.
“Those who suggest that this paperback release, with no additional material, is an olive branch, are sadly mistaken,” she said (via The Mirror). “New material can be conciliatory. Harry might have taken the lead and opened with a different prologue, fore-fronting his regret about how things turned out. And reiterating his good wishes for Kate [Middleton] and the king.” (The two are continuing cancer treatment after announcing their diagnoses in March and February, respectively.)
“That he has decided to stay shtum [British slang for “silent”] is indicative of the cold war which persists within the royal family,” Dunlop continued. Instead, as Harry approaches his 40th birthday on Sept. 15, 2024, “there is little sign of a reconciliation. The uncomfortable stalemate persists.”
“My hunch is that deep down, Harry regrets some of what he has written. But like so many men, he is way too proud to admit it,” she said. Meanwhile, Spare’s unchanged text is “in line with the duke’s pledge to move on from looking back.”
All in all it, keeping Spare’s paperback edition the same shows he’s “playing a longer game. Too much whinging does his brand no favours [sic]. And with cancer impacting both his father and sister-in-law Kate, now is not the time to have another pop.”
Where Prince Harry stands with his father and brother
Things have apparently gotten worse in the ongoing royal family rift. King Charles is now reportedly not talking to Harry after falling out over his youngest son’s legal battle for U.K. security (via People).
The king is said to be fed up with Harry thinking he holds sway as monarch in what Buckingham Palace sources view as a government matter. Meanwhile, per the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC), Harry is required to follow three very specific steps before crossing the pond after being stripped of his security in 2020.
As for where Harry stands with his brother, things between him and the Prince of Wales
remain unchanged. The two haven’t talked since Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022 where, as Harry shared in Spare, they exchanged only a few words. The last time they were in the same room together was at their father’s coronation in May 2023.
