Books January 2008
Mah-velous, dah-ling
On The Letters of Noël Coward, edited by James Sexton.
James Sexton, editor
The Letters of Noël Coward.
Knopf, 800 pages, $37.50
The Letters of Noël Coward.
Knopf, 800 pages, $37.50
In the very first of The Letters of Noël Coward, the eponymous epistler writes:
Darling MotherHe was seven and already inventing himself. The letters got longer in the years ahead but the subject matter didn’t change much: tea, dressing up, singing and dancing, though not as many boys as you might think. The snobbery was in place a mere half-decade or so later: Of some blameless lady in Wolverhampton who gave him tea and indeed the tuppenny bus...
I hope you are well. Girlie has taught me to row with two oars and I row her along. I had some little boys over yesterday afternoon to tea and I dressed up in a short dress and danced to them and sung to them and we all went round the lake and on it.
XXXXXOOOOOXO
I am writing this in the kitchen with love from Noël Coward.
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