Quotes of the Day

Diana, Princess of Wales, was a commodity — and she had a pretty shrewd idea of her own value. "You see yourself as a good product that sits on a shelf and sells well," she said in a famous confessional BBC TV interview in 1995. "And people make a lot of money out of you."

They still do. When she was alive, everyone wanted a piece of Diana. Photographers chased after her smile, newspapers hung on her words, her fans bought anything that would get them that little bit closer to the fairy tale. And when she died, the outpouring of grief was accompanied by the urge to spend — as if millions of mourners thought that if they could only collect enough commemorative plates, or read enough biographies, maybe together they could hold on to the woman they had lost too soon.

The mania surrounding Princess Diana has calmed since she died. The industry that was built from it, though, is still going strong — a steady heartbeat of Dianabilia that keeps the princess's memory alive as long as people keep reaching into their pockets. The queen of cultural icons, Diana is one of a handful of superstars who can still shift the merchandise long after they're gone. Like Elvis, Diana has a loyal army of fans for whom every commemorative coin, plate and velvet portrait is a must-have. Like Marilyn Monroe (another tragic blond who died young and beautiful), Diana left behind a string of conspiracy theories that make people want to know more.

But Elvis and Marilyn were entertainers. Their legacies are stored in back catalogs, albums and movies that fans can dip into again and again. Diana was different. People knew her as a royal, a mother, a humanitarian and — many thought — a saint. You can pay your respects to the King for the price of a ticket to Graceland. But to honor Diana might mean trying to change the world by supporting the causes she championed when she was alive. Any icon can be used to make people part with their money for something commemorative, but Diana can make them give it away to a good cause. That makes her legacy unusual.

With the 10th anniversary of Diana's death on Aug. 31, a host of companies are hoping to separate consumers from their cash. This year sees the publication in the U.S. and Britain of at least 15 Diana-related books. The biography Diana: The Portrait, by Rosalind Coward, has an official nod of approval from Diana's estate. Christopher Andersen's After Diana looks at the royal family since her death. And A Dress for Diana is a $2,000 limited-edition coffee-table book about the princess's wedding dress containing a swatch from the leftover silk. Diana the angel, Diana the manipulator, Diana the maker of Kings, Diana the destroyer of the monarchy: all will soon be jostling for attention at a major bookstore near you.

Peter Saxton, biography buyer at British bookseller Waterstone's, thinks there's a limit to the Diana publishing phenomenon. "I can’t see that there’s enough of a market for all 15 books to do spectacularly well," he says. Saxton does, however, think one book could break away from the pack — The Diana Chronicles, by Tina Brown, published in both the U.S. and the U.K. this month. Brown, the former editor of the Tatler, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, follows the princess as she goes from shy newlywed to "trapped bird in a cage" to a confident woman whose new start in life was tragically cut short. Brown stitched together two years of research with her own experiences of Diana, whom she met several times in the 1980s. "I ended up really liking Diana," says Brown. "She was a complicated girl with deep wounds and could be very vindictive when she was crossed. But she was also authentically compassionate and caring." Diana's "rare combination of great beauty and intense unhappiness," says Brown, "made her a figure that everyone wanted to protect and love. We miss her."

Royal watchers in the media certainly do — so much so, indeed, that a lot of coverage of the British royals still turns on the dead princess. "Most of the royal stories we do refer back to Diana in some way," says Simon Perry, London bureau chief for PEOPLE magazine (a sister publication of TIME). "Now when we look at Diana, it's through the eyes of the people she left behind, and that's the Princes, William and Harry." Iconic pictures of her are still worth a tidy sum for those photographers lucky enough to have taken them, whether they’re grainy paparazzi snaps of Diana on holiday or intimate portraits like those shot by Mario Testino for Vanity Fair five months before she died. Every year around this time, he says, Testino is inundated with requests for his photos of a smiling, serene Diana. "The pictures were important to me from the very beginning because she was a magical person," he says. "But I don't feel comfortable releasing them everywhere. I prefer they remain something special and precious."

At least some in the Diana industry think it will get a boost this year from more than the anniversary of the car crash in a Paris tunnel. After years of delays, the inquest into her death is starting up in London — and the press finally will have something new to say. "The real interest now is the story of the conspiracy," says Peter Hill, editor of London newspaper the Daily Express. "There's an enormous number of people who simply do not believe that [Diana's death] was just an accident." For whatever reason — nostalgia, loyalty, morbid curiosity — readers are still drawn to Diana. "She was a gift to the media when she was alive," says former royal correspondent Nicholas Owen, whose book Diana: The People’s Princess was published June 4. "And the extraordinary thing is that even today, when a magazine or newspaper editor almost anywhere in the world is a bit worried about circulation figures, he only needs to put the Princess of Wales on the cover."

While newspapers and magazines cater to the casual princess watcher, some pilgrims want more solid mementos. Every summer they descend on Althorp, the historical home of Diana’s family, where for $25 they can walk through the rooms she played in as a child, check out the small museum that exhibits her favorite dresses and personal letters, gaze upon her grave that sits on an island in the middle of a lake — and pick up souvenirs, like a heart-shaped key ring ($12) or a bone china pillbox ($30). Diana merchandise still sells in main streets and malls in Britain and far beyond. Her likeness is etched onto stacks of commemorative coins — the Royal Mint is releasing a set costing between $80 for the smallest one and $480 for the largest — and inked onto reams of stamps (over 100 governments will be issuing Diana stamps before the end of August). And then there are the dolls. Lots of dolls. U.S. collectibles company the Franklin Mint has a catalog that reads like a Who's Who of scale-model celebrity, from Marilyn Monroe to Jackie Onassis. Lady Di — at $195 a doll — outsells them all. A private company, the Franklin Mint won't say how many of the dolls it has sold. (The U.S. firm had a long legal battle, now settled, with the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund over rights to use the princess's image.)

The value of Diana’s memory is not just that it persuades people to spend — but also that it motivates them to give. A glamorous princess holding the hand of a dying stranger, comforting a sick child — those were the moments that made Diana an international symbol of caring. For charities that work in her name, that's the kind of publicity money can’t buy. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund was set up in 1997 with the donations that came flooding in after her death. Since then it has handed out $150 million in grants to more than 350 projects and organizations focusing on issues like palliative care in Africa and raising awareness of the problems facing young refugees. Other charities can spend huge amounts of time and money just trying to explain to governments and the public what it is they do. With Diana as its silent spokeswoman, the Fund needs no introduction — everyone knew Diana and the causes she stood for. "We're very small compared to foundations the size of Gates and Buffet, which are spending $3.5 billion a year," says Astrid Bonfield, the Fund's CEO. "But the fact that we have Diana, who is associated with very powerful images around issues like land mines and HIV/AIDS, gives us a voice. It opens doors and gives us a seat at the table." It also brings in money. All the proceeds from the sold-out Concert for Diana at London’s Wembley Stadium on July 1 — organized by William and Harry to celebrate what would have been their mother’s 46th birthday — are going to charities Diana supported, including the National aids Trust and the Leprosy Mission.

Don't dismiss what an association with the dead princess can do for those who want to do good. Andrew Morton is best known as the author of Diana: Her True Story, the 1992 biography that revealed — with Diana’s covert blessing — how unhappy she was in her marriage. But he also chairs Response International, which helps war victims in countries like Bosnia, Kosovo and Lebanon. In 2002, the charity received a grant from the Memorial Fund to support land-mine clearance in Pakistan. "Some of the charity workers have to go where literacy rates are low and suspicion of strangers is high," says Morton. "They carry pictures of Diana with them, and everywhere they go, she is recognized as a humanitarian. Diana is like a passport that allows our workers into these villages so they can do their jobs." The market may have put a value on every aspect of Diana’s life and death, but there are places where her image is still priceless.

• JUMANA FAROUKY
• Ten years after her death, Diana still reigns as icon