I have been reading this collection, on and off, for about 2½ years - it has taken so long for 2 main reasons, first at around 750 pages it is a bit of tome and therefore doesn't lean itself well to being a traveling companion and the train is where I do most of my reading, second by its very nature the letters give a structure that is ideal to dip in and out of and as I got towards the end I have been trying to spin it out the way that you start to ration your sweets as you get towards the bottom of the bag.
Barry Day does an excellent job of introducing and bridging the letters, allowing you to place the letters in the context of Coward's life, but in a subtle way that gives the primary voice to Coward himself. While it reveals that there is largely a continuity between the private persona and public personality and there is much that is jolly, witty, and delightfully bitchy, there are private moments of sadness and genuine heart ache which are moving.
Among the many many friends encountered through the letters I particularly enjoyed the insight into the lives of the Mountbattens, who Southampton claims as there own, which reminds me of the unfathomable decision of Swaythling Housing to rename Edwina House, where I lived with its associations with the glamorous and sexy last vicereine of India, Tyrrell Court after a local shop keeper, but that is, perhaps, another story...
Of the many works of or about Coward that are out there (which I haven't read) I feel sure that this must be one of the best romps through a life filled with incident and charm. If you love Coward you'll love this, if you don't love Coward, well I don't know what we are going to do with you...
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