Harry is off the market, but the royal books are still on the shelf.

To help pass the time as you await your invitation to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's spring wedding, here are some books to indulge your deepest Anglophilia. Laura Hartmann-Villalta, who teaches English at Georgetown and founded a royal wedding reading Meetup group, helped put together this list:



“Prince Charles,” by Sally Bedell Smith (Random House)

Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life (Random House), by Sally Bedell Smith.

Smith's lengthy biography, released in April, tells the story of Britain's longest-serving heir-in-waiting. Prince Charles tends to get a bad rap, not least because of a certain mistress-turned-second wife. Smith delves into the doomed relationship between Charles and Princess Diana, and his love affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. But she does so kindly; Charles emerges as an eccentric and complicated man — funny, warm, sensitive and lonely.

(See also Smith's biographies of Diana and Queen Elizabeth II.)

[Prince Charles is sad and sexy and maybe too nice to be king]

The Diana Chronicles (Anchor, paperback), by Tina Brown.

More than 20 years after her death, the Princess of Wales remains queen of our hearts. Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and the British gossip magazine Tatler, offers plenty of juicy, detail-heavy dirt on Diana. For example, Brown writes that the night before Diana's wedding, the 20-year-old got "sick as a parrot" after eating everything in sight, then hopped on an elderly page's bike and pedaled in circles, singing, "I'm going to marry the Prince of Wales tomorrow!" When Brown asked former prime minister Tony Blair if he thought Diana's life signified a "new way to be royal," he replied: "No. Diana taught us a new way to be British."

(See also Andrew Morton's "Diana: Her True Story," which was reissued in June.)

William and Harry: Behind the Palace Walls (Hachette), by Katie Nicholl.

Prince Harry's former love Chelsy Davy broke up with him on Facebook by changing her relationship status to "single." Such is the kind of tidbit we glean from Nicholl's 2010 book about the royal brothers. Nicholl, a British columnist, chronicles their lives from childhood through adulthood, including the period after their mother died, and examines their relationship with their father and Camilla Parker-Bowles. Harry emerges as strong, confident and easy-mannered, with a penchant for pranks.

[Best books of 2017]



“The Crown,” by Robert LaceyT FOR RESALE (Crown Archetype)

The Crown: The Official Companion, Volume 1: Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, and the Making of a Young Queen (1947-1955) (Crown Archetype), by Robert Lacey.

Anyone who tuned in to the first season of Netflix's popular series "The Crown" will recall the scene in Kenya when Elizabeth Mountbatten learns her father, King George VI, has died, and that she'll become queen. Royal biographer Robert Lacey, a historical consultant to the Netflix series, here describes the mother who doubted Elizabeth's marriage, the husband who resented having to sacrifice his career and family name, the uncle who scoffed at her abilities — and of course, the resolve that kept her on top. The book dives deeper into royal history than the show and is visually impressive, illustrated with full-page archival photos.



“That Woman,” by Anne Sebba (St. Martin's Griffin)

That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (St. Martin's Griffin, paperback), by Anne Sebba.

Meghan Markle isn't the first American divorcée to win a royal's heart. In the 1930s, Wallis Simpson, a divorced socialite, allegedly seduced King Edward VIII, becoming his mistress. He famously abdicated his throne to marry her, and Elizabeth II's mother declared her "that woman." Graffiti smeared across England walls read "Down with the American harlot." Sebba's multifaceted biography reexamines the couple's courtship and marriage, relying in part on newly discovered letters Wallis wrote to one of her former husbands. Sebba also provides keen insight on what it meant to be divorced and American in 1936, particularly in England.

A Royal Duty (Putnam), by Paul Burrell.

Some of us marry into the royal family; others join it through the workforce. When Burrell was 8 years old, the working-class boy from a northern England mining village was taken to watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Smitten, he pledged to work for the royal family one day. Ten years later, he made good, becoming a footman to the queen and then Diana's butler and confidant. His tell-all is full of gossip about Diana's marriage, divorce and "gentleman friends," plus descriptions of royal service — running everywhere so as not to keep Prince Charles waiting; tying dusters around his feet to walk along the state dining-table.

The Queen and I (Penguin), by Sue Townsend.

If you'd rather binge on the royals via wickedly funny fiction, try Townsend's 1992 novel featuring Diana, Charles, Philip, little Harry and William, and even one of the queen's corgis. When a republican party wins the general election, the monarchy is dismantled and the royal family is sent to a housing estate to live like all the other Brits. How will they cope when their caviar is replaced with boiled eggs? Townsend's tale, since turned into a play, is a charming, clever "what if."

Angela Haupt is a health editor and a freelance features writer based in Washington.