Book Description

An English aristocrat’s WWII letters “illuminate British history . . . [and] offer an indelible portrait of an extraordinary woman and her vanished world.”(Kirkus Reviews) Aristocrat, socialite, actress and wife of Duff Cooper, Churchill's wartime Minister for Information, later Ambassador to France and Viscount Norwich, Diana Cooper was also an inveterate letter-writer. Gathered here, her missives to her only son John Julius Norwich during the Second World War and its aftermath provide a vivid picture of the age and its personalities, and a woman of great intelligence, happiest on her country smallholding but able to cope with the demands on a politician's wife. "While Darling Monster is a showcase of Diana’s debonair wit, it is also a unique chronicle of wartime Britain. Her vivid descriptions, the sense of bravery in the face of impending doom, make these letters the kind of primary source material historians drool over.” —The Guardian “Cooper is always quick with a turn of phrase, and the collection reminds us of a time, not so long ago, when letters were a natural part of life.” —Publishers Weekly