Trumpets from the Steep

The third volume of Diana Cooper's witty, gossipy and brilliant autobiography – the perfect evocation of glittering high society in the aftermath of the Second World War

She wrote three volumes of autobiography...books which are likely to hold their interest for a long time to come

Lady Diana was no ordinary upper-class English rose: She was perhaps the first person from such a background to go on the stage, wowing audiences on both sides of the Atlantic

Admired and adored as a classic beauty and first-division socialite during the frivolous Twenties and Thirties, Lady Diana was one of the last survivors of the set which revolved around the Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson

One of the glittering social personalities of an era of wealth and privilege, combining as she did exceptional grace and beauty with verve and a nature of deep and intense feeling

Lady Diana Cooper was born on 29 August 1892. She married Alfred Duff Cooper, DSO., who became one of the Second Word War’s key politicians. Her startling beauty resulted in her playing the lead in two silent films and then Max Reinhardt’s The Miracle. In 1944, following the Liberation of Paris, the couple moved into the British Embassy, Paris. They then retired to a house at Chantilly just outside Paris. After Duff’s death in 1954 Diana remained there till 1960, when she moved back to London. She died in 1986.

This last volume of Lady Diana Cooper's memoirs covers the years of the Second World War and its aftermath, when her husband Duff Cooper served as Minister of Information and then in various diplomat posts around the world. We accompany the Coopers on their travels from the Dorchester Hotel during the breathless days of the Blitz, to a happy sojourn farming in Sussex, to Singapore and Algiers and eventual retirement to France, all told with Diana's unique perspective and enchanting style.

The Rainbow Comes and Goes

The first volume of Diana Cooper's witty, gossipy and sparkling autobiography – the perfect evocation of a bygone age.

Poetic, idiosyncratic, poignant, funny, unflagging, scintillating, simple, stylish; not the book of the season, or of the bedside table; a book...to be read and reread and loved for a lifetime.

Each reader will have his favourite passage...it is witty, original and modish and cuts a stylistic dash... She is a born memoirist

Lady Diana Cooper was born on 29 August 1892. She married Alfred Duff Cooper, DSO, who became one of the Second Word War’s key politicians. Her startling beauty resulted in her playing the lead in two silent films and then Max Reinhardt’s The Miracle. In 1944, following the Liberation of Paris, the couple moved into the British Embassy in Paris. They then retired to a house at Chantilly just outside Paris. After Duff’s death in 1954 Diana remained there till 1960, when she moved back to London. She died in 1986.

Lady Diana Cooper was a star of the early twentieth stage, screen and social scene. This first instalment of her sparkling autobiography tells of her upbringing, her beautiful artistic mother and aristocratic father, her debut into high society and the glittering parties - 'dancing and extravagance and lashing of wine, and charades and moonlit balconies and kisses' - which were interrupted with the outbreak of the First World War. This volume ends with Diana's marriage to the 'love of her life', diplomat and politician Duff Cooper.

The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to her Son John Julius Norwich 1939-1952

Darling Monster

Society darling, actress, wife of key WW2 politician Duff Cooper… Here are Lady Diana Cooper’s sparkling letters to her son John Julius

Witty, touching, perceptive and beautifully written... Read at a sitting or keep by your bed -- either way you will be enchanted

Cooper's letters have special immediacy and frankness... a lot of gossip, for sure, but also some sublime descriptive writing... And then there is her beadiness, which is worth its weight in silver breakfast trays... Truly blissful

She treats her son, last seen in a dimly lit station, as a much missed grown-up to whom she can be exhilaratingly open. She sends him intimate glimpses of the great... the good... and the not-so good. Inescapably posh but rarely judgemental... she is rescued from glibness by her childlike curiosity and humour, and the always innocent eye with which she peeks at the world

This book is a rich fruitcake, stuffed with delicious and surprising plums

Though always exigent of love, the letters are filled with jokes, sharp observation and relish for the passing moment. This selection of them offers a sparkling portrait of a maternal relationship

Diana Cooper is as vivid in literature and social legend as she was in life. Her letters are frank, witty and humorous

[Diana Cooper is] a terrific letter writer, as this book attests… Tender, absorbing and highly readable, this is a brilliant picture of a vanished world

A diary of Diana Cooper's life during the Second World War and afterwards in Paris – absorbing, funny and sharply observed

Her charming, funny, gossipy letters are a vivid portrait of a charmed class, as well as a testament to a mother’s love for her son

This is a fascinating account of a life well lived

A sparky, quirky, endearing study of England in wartime, and an object lesson in courage, character and humanity

While Darling Monster is a showcase of Diana’s debonair wit, it is also a unique chronicle of wartime Britain

Tender, absorbing and readable, this is a brilliant picture of a vanished world

Lady Diana Cooper was born on 29 August 1892. She married Alfred Duff Cooper, DSO., who became one of the Second Word War’s key politicians. Her startling beauty resulted in her playing the lead in two silent films and then Max Reinhardt’s The Miracle. In 1944, following the Liberation of Paris, the couple moved into the British Embassy, Paris. They then retired to a house at Chantilly just outside Paris. After Duff’s death in 1954 Diana remained there till 1960, when she moved back to London. She died in 1986. 
 
John Julius Norwich, the only son of Diana and Duff Cooper, is the author of histories of Norman Sicily, the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire,the Mediterranean and, most recently, The Popes. He has also written on architecture, music and the history plays of Shakespeare, and has presented some thirty historical documentaries on BBC Television.

The glittering letters of British socialite Lady Diana Cooper to her son John Julius Norwich, from pre-World War Two London to post-Liberation Paris 
 
‘Please, darling monster, write as often as you can. It’s so sad waiting for letters that don’t come and are not even written. I love my darling boy. Don’t treat me so badly again or I’ll have your lights and liver when I get home.’ 19 November 1939 
 
 ‘I wish, I wish it was all over – Hitler defeated, the lights up again and the guns still.’ 2 October 1940 
 
Lady Diana Cooper was the Edwardian It Girl who inspired novelists from Evelyn Waugh to Nancy Mitford. Born Lady Diana Manners, she was an aristocrat, society darling and an actress. Married to political star Duff Cooper, they were the golden couple at the heart of 20th century British upper-class life. This extraordinary collection of letters written by Diana to her only son, John Julius Norwich, takes us from the rumblings of war, through the Blitz to rural Sussex to post-Liberation Paris. 
 
 Beyond all the glitz, Diana emerges in these letters as highly intelligent, funny and fiercely loyal: a woman who disliked extravagance and was often shy, who was happiest in the countryside and whose greatest love were her husband and son John, who would later become a leading historian and broadcaster. These illuminating letters document some of history’s most dramatic events, but they provide a vivid and touching portrait of the love between a mother and son, separated by war, oceans – and the constraints of the time they lived in. 
 
‘Diana Cooper is as vivid in literature and social legend as she was in life. Her letters are frank, witty and humorous’ The Times

Diana Cooper

The second volume of Lady Diana Cooper'[s memoirs covers her life from 1923 to the outbreak of war in 1939. During those years she became a famous English personality, as a woman of prodigious beauty, as a remarkable actress and as the unconventional wife of a British statesman.

A chronicle of people and events written with her particular brio and with her especial blend of the comic and the compassionate, and it is, too, a story of loyalties. Impulsive, natural, amusing, revealing and never for an instant pedestrian

Lady Diana Cooper had been famous from her earliest youth, the subject of gossip and adoration as the queen of the 'Coterie', an exclusive high society set. Her marriage to Duff Cooper, a rising political star, and her career on the stage and in early silent films only increased her notoriety. Her second volume of autobiography chronicles these years in the run-up to the Second World War, and her adventures as an unconventional hostess, actress, wife and mother are told in typically fast-paced, witty and brilliant style.

Diana Cooper

Praise for The Light of Common Day

The second volume of Lady Diana Cooper'[s memoirs covers her life from 1923 to the outbreak of war in 1939. During those years she became a famous English personality, as a woman of prodigious beauty, as a remarkabl ...

Lady Diana was no ordinary upper-class English rose: She was perhaps the first person from such a background to go on the stage, wowing audiences on both sides of the Atlantic

She wrote three volumes of autobiography...books which are likely to hold their interest for a long time to come

The second volume of Lady Diana Cooper'[s memoirs covers her life from 1923 to the outbreak of war in 1939. During those years she became a famous English personality, as a woman of prodigious beauty, as a remarkabl ...

Lady Diana was no ordinary upper-class English rose: She was perhaps the first person from such a background to go on the stage, wowing audiences on both sides of the Atlantic

She wrote three volumes of autobiography...books which are likely to hold their interest for a long time to come

The second volume of Lady Diana Cooper'[s memoirs covers her life from 1923 to the outbreak of war in 1939. During those years she became a famous English personality, as a woman of prodigious beauty, as a remarkabl ...

Lady Diana was no ordinary upper-class English rose: She was perhaps the first person from such a background to go on the stage, wowing audiences on both sides of the Atlantic

She wrote three volumes of autobiography...books which are likely to hold their interest for a long time to come

Books by Diana Cooper

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