Born in 1953, Michael Bloch read law at St John's College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar by Inner Temple. He worked for Maître Suzanne Blum, the Paris lawyer of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and wrote six books about the couple. He edited the diaries of James Lees-Milne, the National Trust's rescuer of country houses, and wrote his biography. His other biographical subjects include Hitler's Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop, and Frederick Matthias Alexander, founder of the Alexander technique.