The Letters of Noel Coward »

Barry Day is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a trustee of the Noël Coward Foundation. In addition to his seven previous books on Noël Coward, he has written about Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde, Johnny Mercer, and Rodgers & Hart. Day was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) "for services to British culture in the United States."

A publishing event! The first and definitive collection of letters (most of them previously unpublished) both from and to the incomparable Noël Coward, a unique and irresistible portrait of a society and age—from the Blitz to the Ritz and beyond.

The range, charm, and vitality of his talents—he was a playwright, actor, composer, librettist, lyricist, director, painter, writer, cabaret singer, wit—brought him into close encounters, and often close friendship, with the great and the gifted. He knew everybody who was anybody in the theater and in the movies, in literature and in politics, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Among those at his “marvelous party”: George Bernard Shaw . . . T. E. Lawrence . . . Virginia Woolf . . . the Churchills . . . Daphne Du Maurier . . . Greta Garbo (she wrote asking him to marry her; he wrote back saying he almost accepted) . . . Ian Fleming . . . W. Somerset Maugham . . . Marlene Dietrich (he advised her, “To hell with God damned ‘L’Amour.’ It always causes far more trouble than it is worth”) . . . Tallulah Bankhead . . . Edith Sitwell . . . FDR . . . Gertrude Lawrence (in a cable about Private Lives: “Have written delightful new comedy stop good part for you stop wonderful one for me stop”), and many more.

There are letters about his productions of Bitter Sweet . . . Cavalcade . . . In Which We Serve . . . Brief Encounter . . . Private Lives, etc. . . . about his activities during World War II (he was a spy for the British government along with co-conspirator Cary Grant) . . . about the move to make him a knight that was endorsed in a personal letter from King George VI and blocked by Winston Churchill. Here are letters to and from his beloved mother, Violet . . . his longtime set and costume designer, Gladys Calthrop . . . his traveling companion from the 1930s on, Lord Amherst . . . and his business manager and onetime lover, Jack Wilson, in which he reveals his “secret heart.”

Profoundly savvy, witty, loving, bitchy, and often surprisingly moving, The Letters of Noël Coward gives us “Destiny’s Tot” at his crackling best. An irresistible portrait of a time, of the man himself, and of the world he lived in and enchanted.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

As edited by Barry Day, whose other books have been devoted to Dorothy Parker, P. G. Wodehouse, Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes as well as Coward, these letters highlight not only the meringue wit that obviously delights Mr. Day but also Coward's processes of growth and self-discovery…The Letters of Noel Coward is a transporting epistolary portrait of great range and agility…

List of Illustrations     ix
Introduction     3
Preface     9
"Beginners, Please!"
The Boy Actor     13
"I Like America"     54
"Dance, Dance, Dance, Little Lady"     68
Intermission: Dab and Lornie     88
The Vortex     107
"Why Must the Show Go On?"     123
"I'm World Weary, World Weary"     134
The Years of Grace
This Year of Grace!     149
"Mad Dogs and Englishmen"     166
Intermission: Gertrude Lawrence     178
Private Lives     209
Intermission: Play Parade     223
Cavalcade     262
Noel & Alfred & Lynn...and Their Design for Living     275
Conversation Piece...and Missing the Point     292
The Scoundrel...and Still Traveling Alone     308
Intermission: Marlene Dietrich     315
Tonight at 8:30     332
Operette...and Straws in the Wind     351
Noel's War
World War II: "Twentieth Century Blues"     367
"Then Along Came Bill"     395
World War II: "Faraway Land"     418
World War II: "In Which We Serve"     427
World War II: "I Travel Alone"     482
Shadow Play
Sigh Once More...and a Storm in the Pacific     513
The Fallow Forties     529
Intermission: A Quadrille...for Two     550
...and the Fitful Fifties     565
Nescafe Society...and the Small Screen     584
Bubbles...and Nudes     610
A Different Sky...and a Look at Lulu     642
A Visit to "Greeneland"...via Havana     653
Wings...and Sails     661
Interimission: A Chatter of Chums     688
Girls...and Spirits     702
"Dad's Renaissance"     718
Songs at Twilight     728
Shadow of Evening     746
Permissions and Acknowledgments     755
Index     757