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Overview
The Noël Coward Reader offers a wonderfully wide-ranging selection—the first of its kind—of the best of the Master’s oeuvre, entertainingly annotated and abundantly illustrated, and including material that has never before been published.
Here are scenes from Coward’s famous plays, from Private Lives to Blithe Spirit, and his screenplays, from Brief Encounter to In Which We Serve. Here are four of his best short stories, scenes from his only novel, and a generous selection of his verse, alongside the lyrics of many of his most sublime songs, including “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” “The Stately Homes of England,” and “Mad About the Boy.” The Noël Coward Reader is a must-have book both for those who adore his work and for those who are just discovering the many-faceted delights of his comic genius.
Editorials
Brad Leithauser
In The Noël Coward Reader, Barry Day…has given himself the formidable task of ordering and justly representing a peripatetic and outpouring talent. This is an outsize book…Coward aficionados should find unexpected pleasures, including rare photographs.—The New York Times
Jonathan Yardley
Since a genuinely satisfactory biography of the great Noël Coward has yet to be written, this compendium of bits and pieces from his massive life's work can serve as a useful and thoroughly entertaining introduction to that life and work for those who do not know either, as well as a treasured bedside companion for those who do. Coward…seems in no danger of vanishing from our collective consciousness, but it is good to have Barry Day's Reader because it covers the full sweep of his career and leaves no doubt as to the depth and breadth of his accomplishment.—The Washington Post