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The Letters of Noel Coward

by: Noel Coward

: The Letters of Noel Coward
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 822.912
EAN: 9780375423031
ISBN: 0375423036
Label: Knopf
Manufacturer: Knopf
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 800
Publication Date: November 13, 2007
Publisher: Knopf
Release Date: November 13, 2007
Sales Rank: 91476
Studio: Knopf



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 The first and definitive collection of letters (most of them previously unpublished) both from and to the incomparable Noël Coward, a unique and irresistible portrait of a society and age—from the Blitz to the Ritz and beyond.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





Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Fascinating insight into an original mind
Whether you are familiar with the works of Noel Coward on the most basic level or are a lifelong fan, ... Read More


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Fun theatre read!
You have to read between the lines a bit on this one as both the writer and Noel Coward are very closeted ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Wondeful Book
Avid fan of Noel Coward and this books is a welcome addition to my library. Great purchase!!


Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - NOEL COWARD UP & PERSONAL, BUT NOT LETTER-PERFECT
The sheer output of the late Coward---plays, musicals, operettas, revues, movies, television and radio shows, ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Destined to amuse, Coward conquers all
I was surprised to receive this book as a gift -- why would I want to read the fatuities of a bygone wit? -- and ... Read More

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Copyright ©2003, Mark Carey.