An infinite capacity for enjoyment

Nearly 30 years ago I asked Rupert Hart-Davis, nephew and literary executor of Duff Cooper, whether I could see these diaries for a biography I was writing of Duff’s wife, Diana. ‘Not the slightest point, dear boy,’ he replied. ‘They are no more than a chronicle of unbridled extravagance, drunkenness and lechery.’ Eventually he relented and I discovered how wrong he was. There is, indeed, an inordinate amount of wine and women in these diaries, little song (Duff was tone-deaf) but much baccarat or bridge and backgammon for high stakes at White’s. Rupert’s error lay in the ‘no more’. There is plenty in this well- balanced, honest and admirably edited selection to prove that Duff Cooper was also a brave and far-seeing statesman, a man of taste, intellectual curiosity and literary skills, and an amused yet fully engaged chronicler of the world of great events in which he moved.

Hart-Davis once asked his uncle why he kept diaries.