'Spiteful and neurotic': the most savage attack on Diana EVER

The account of her extraordinary life, to be published weeks before the tenth anniversary of her death, paints the princess as spiteful, media-savvy and neurotic.

The book, by former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown, is bound to provoke controversy, not only for the number of people speaking publicly for the first time about Diana, but also for the timing of its publication.

It will appear in mid-June - a fortnight before the memorial concert planned by Princes William and Harry.

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What has given the book huge credibility is the fact that its author is the well-connected Miss Brown, who had lunch with the princess only weeks before her death in 1997.

She previously caused a storm with a 1985 article, The Mouse That Roared, blaming Diana's "boring" and neglectful husband for her transformation from shy girl to international star.

Chief among the latest claims is that, far from being a lovestruck young girl, Diana was more in love with Charles's title than she was with him and that her mother Frances Shand Kydd tried to talk her out of the marriage.

She is said to have asked whether Diana loved the prince, or loved "what he is", to which Diana retorted: "What's the difference?"

It also includes allegations about the Duchess of Cornwall, not least that the love of her life was not Charles but actually her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles.

She pursued the philandering cavalry major for six years before their marriage, the book says, only agreeing to resume her relationship with Charles because she savoured the idea of being a royal consort and was angry at her husband's infidelities.

By contrast, Charles comes off surprisingly well, with the claim that he remained a little in love with Diana in her final years.

Miss Brown claims that after the fatal Paris car crash, Charles clung to the hope she would survive and he would bring her home and care for her.

The book is to be serialised in Vanity Fair magazine next month and Miss Brown is said to have received a £1 million advance from the publishers.

While some of the claims have been aired in various forms before, others are new.

She claims to have interviewed 250 insiders about Diana, from Tony Blair to Dr James Colthurst, who breaks his 15-year silence about his role as go-between carrying tape recordings of Diana's reminiscences to Andrew Morton for the 1992 book Diana: Her True Story.

Others include Charles's former flame Sabrina Guinness, whose account of the early stages of the courtship between Charles and Diana shatters the image of a shy innocent being pursued by a prince.

Guinness says it was Diana who was "all over" Charles. "She was flirting, she was giggling . . . sitting on his lap."

Other claims include:

• Diana had two "assignations" with Charles on the royal train before they were married, then co-operated with the Palace to preserve her image of virginity. At the time, claims that she had spent the night with Charles caused a huge controversy.

• Given a choice of engagement rings to be paid for by the Queen, she picked the biggest.

• She falsely convinced herself on honeymoon that Charles had resumed his affair with Camilla.

• The story that while pregnant with William she threw herself downstairs was a sympathy-seeking lie and in fact she only stumbled.

• After the divorce she was looking for "a guy with a Gulfstream jet", had no intention of marrying Dodi Fayed and was plotting to land American financier Teddy Forstmann.

• Cavorting in a bikini with Dodi was designed to anger the Queen and Charles.

• William fought with Diana over her relationship with Dodi.

• On the eve of her wedding she cycled around the grounds of Clarence House singing: "I'm going to marry the Prince of Wales tomorrow."

The last claim is in sharp contrast to what Diana herself said on the tape recordings used by Andrew Morton.

Talking about her wedding, she said: "I was feeling deathly calm, deathly calm. I felt like a lamb to the slaughter and I knew I couldn't do anything about it . . . My wedding day was the worst day of my life."

The different perspective is given by the Queen Mother's servant William Tallon, who told Miss Brown he saw Diana's giddy celebration.

Her relationship with billionaire Teddy Forstmann - who owned the company that makes Gulfstream jets - has been known about before.

But speaking for the first time he says they never consummated their relationship and that he sent her flowers every week for three years.

"Diana definitely wanted a guy in her life. [She] had the idea that we should get married, that I should run for President and she would be First Lady."

Miss Brown said the book was sympathetic to everyone. "I think the portrait of Diana is one that has a lot of human generosity," she said. "Like everyone she's a combination of things and that's true of all the protagonists in the book."