A posthumous memoir by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s best-known accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has sold 1m copies worldwide in just the two months after its release.

Publisher Alfred A Knopf announced on Tuesday that more than half the sales for Nobody’s Girl came out of North America; in the US, the book is now in its 10th printing after an initial run of 70,000 copies. Giuffre’s book, co-written by author-journalist Amy Wallace, was published in early October.

The memoir helped revive criticism of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly a British prince, whom Giuffre alleged had sex with her when she was 17. And it heightened demands that the Justice Department release its files on Epstein, who killed himself in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Giuffre died by suicide in April at age 41.

“This is a bittersweet moment for us,” Giuffre’s family, including siblings Sky Roberts and Danny Wilson, said in a statement. “We are enormously proud of our sister, and the impact she continues to have on the world. We’re also filled with so much sorrow that she couldn’t be here to witness the impact of her words. In her absence, our family remains committed to ensuring her voice is everlasting.”

Within weeks of Giuffre’s book being published, King Charles III stripped Mountbatten-Windsor of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence.

Mountbatten-Windsor has long denied Giuffre’s claims but stepped down from royal duties after a disastrous November 2019 BBC interview in which he attempted to rebut her allegations.

He paid millions in an out-of-court settlement in 2022 after Giuffre filed a civil suit against him in New York. While he didn’t admit wrongdoing, he acknowledged Giuffre’s suffering as a victim of sex trafficking.

This week Giuffre’s family expressed their “deep disappointment” after the Metropolitan police announced Mountbatten-Windsor will not face a criminal investigation in the UK over allegations against him.

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Thousands of copies of Sarah Ferguson’s new children’s book have reportedly been withdrawn and “pulped” in the wake of the renewed scrutiny over her links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The book had been due for publication on 9 October, but was postponed until 20 November. It has now been removed entirely from publication schedules, and publishing sources have claimed that printed copies are being sent for recycling.

“It’s not been delayed, it’s being pulped,” one publishing insider told the Daily Mail. “It’s an acknowledgment of the inevitable. No one is going to want to buy it.”

The news follows a period of scandal for Ferguson, 66, who earlier this month lost the title Sarah, Duchess of York after King Charles stripped Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his remaining titles. She is also expected to lose her long-term home at Royal Lodge in Windsor, where she has lived for decades with her former husband, despite their separation.

The withdrawal of the book also prompted the cancellation of a series of planned in-person readings and bookshop appearances. The title has disappeared from the publisher’s website and is no longer listed on major retailers including Waterstones and Amazon. Ferguson has not commented publicly on the decision.

The former duchess has published more than 50 books – largely children’s titles – over several decades, including the Little Red series, Puddle Boots Christmas, and Flora and Fern: Wonder in the Woods, released last year. Her latest was due to be a follow up, Flora and Fern: Kindness Along the Way, about two rabbits learning “kindness and community” during an adventure in the big city. She has also written romantic fiction and published a memoir in 2011, Finding Sarah: A Duchess’s Journey to Find Herself, charting her efforts to rebuild her life “after hitting rock bottom”.

In September, the Mail on Sunday published emails from 2011, in which Ferguson privately described Epstein as her “supreme friend” and apologised for “letting him down”, despite having publicly called her association with him “a gigantic error of judgment”. The messages were sent less than two months after she had insisted she would “never have anything to do with [Epstein] again”, amid pressure over the ties she and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had maintained with him – including a £15,000 payment Epstein made to help settle her debts.

A spokesperson for Ferguson said she had been compelled to write the emails because Epstein had threatened her. The scandal has seen Ferguson dropped by numerous charities with whom she had long-term associations.

New Frontier Publishing did not respond to a request for comment.

The posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent accusers, will be published in the autumn, a publisher has announced.

Giuffre had been working on Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, with the award-winning author and journalist Amy Wallace before her death earlier this year.

The 400-page book will be released on 21 October, according to the Associated Press.

Giuffre, who alleged she had been trafficked for sex to Prince Andrew, had completed the manuscript before she took her own life in April, the publisher Alfred A Knopf said.

Prince Andrew has denied Giuffre’s allegations. In 2022, Giuffre and the prince reached an out-of-court settlement after she sued him for sexual assault.

Knopf’s statement includes an email Giuffre wrote to Wallace 25 days before her death, stating that it was her “heartfelt wish” the memoir be released “regardless” of her circumstances.

“The content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders,” the email reads. “It is imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic are addressed, both for the sake of justice and awareness.”

Giuffre had been hospitalised after a serious accident on 24 March, Knopf said, and sent the email on 1 April. She died on 25 April at her farm in Western Australia, where she had lived for several years.

“In the event of my passing, I would like to ensure that Nobody’s Girl is still released. I believe it has the potential to impact many lives and foster necessary discussions about these grave injustices,” she wrote to Wallace.

Knopf’s statement says the book contains “intimate, disturbing, and heartbreaking new details about her time with Epstein, Maxwell and their many well-known friends, including Prince Andrew, about whom she speaks publicly for the first time since their out-of-court settlement in 2022.”

Knopf editor-in-chief, Jordan Pavlin, said Nobody’s Girl was a “raw and shocking” journey and “the story of a fierce spirit struggling to break free”.

In 2023, the New York Post reported that Giuffre had reached a deal “believed to be worth millions” with an undisclosed publisher.

Knopf spokesperson Todd Doughty told AP that she initially agreed to a seven-figure contract with Penguin Press, but moved with acquiring editor Emily Cunningham after she was hired by Knopf as executive editor last year.

Doughty declined to provide further details about the Epstein associates featured in Nobody’s Girl, but confirmed that Giuffre made “no allegations of abuse against [Donald] Trump”, who continues to face questions about the disgraced financier and his former friend.

Nobody’s Girl is distinct from Giuffre’s unpublished memoir The Billionaire’s Playboy Club, referenced in previous court filings and unsealed in 2019. Through Doughty, Wallace says she began working with Giuffre on a new memoir in spring 2021.

“Nobody’s Girl was both vigorously fact-checked and legally vetted,” a Knopf statement reads.

Giuffre’s co-author on her memoir, Wallace, is an award-winning magazine and newspaper reporter whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications.

A representative for Andrew did not immediately return the AP’s request for comment. Buckingham Palace was asked for comment.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press