Hilary Mantel sales rocket amid 'plastic princess' furore The figures, from online bookseller Amazon, suggest new readers are picking up Mantel's work as a result of the publicity, with others inspired to buy the second part of the historical fiction. Mantel's observations were yesterday condemned by David Cameron, who said they were "completely misguided and completely wrong." Labour's Ed Miliband criticised them as "pretty offensive," specifying that he did not agree with them. The author had aleady been accused of making "incredibly unkind" comments after she described the Duchess of Cambridge as "painfully thin," a "shop window mannequin," and "without character." The writer said in a lecture that the Duchess had been perceived as having "no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore." Referring to her "perfect plastic smile," she argued the then-Kate Middleton had been "selected for her role of princess" because she was "irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character." In an hour-long assessment of the way royal women are viewed, she said the Duchess seemed capable of "going from perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation." The author's lecture for the London Review of Books, entitled Royal Bodies, detailed queens and nobles from the Tudor period to the modern day, each assessed by their appearance and fertility. She also appealed for the public to stop cruel speculation over the royals, calling for people to "back off and not be brutes." Professor Mary Beard, classicist and television historian, has defended Mantel, urging the public to read the full lecture before coming to conclusions. She added the comments "didn't come across to me as a venomous attack on the Duchess, but as a bit of coolly dispassionate analysis on the 'female royal body'... which I hope people will read or listen to. "I would say that the attacks on Hilary Mantel seem to be based on a misunderstanding of what the lecture was really about... so in that sense unfair," she added. David Cameron, speaking during a visit to India yesterday, said of the author: "I think she writes great books, but I think what she's said about Kate Middleton is completely misguided and completely wrong. Labour Leader Ed Miliband told the BBC that Hilary Mantel's comments were "pretty offensive" and that Kate Middleton "deserves our support." These are pretty offensive remarks, I don't agree with them. Kate Middleton is doing a brilliant job in a difficult role. She's a huge asset to the country. She deserves our support in the roles that she's playing. A spokesman for Mantel has said the speech was not a criticism but "remarkably sympathetic," with the author speaking about royal women as victims of their predicament.