The Project Gutenberg EBook of Terribly Intimate Portraits, by Noel Coward

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Title: Terribly Intimate Portraits

Author: Noel Coward

Illustrator: Lorn MacNaughtan

Release Date: September 17, 2008 [EBook #26649]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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TERRIBLY INTIMATE PORTRAITS

COMPILED BY

NOEL COWARD

WITH SIXTEEN
REPRODUCTIONS FROM OLD MASTERS BY
LORN MACNAUGHTAN

BONI AND LIVERIGHT

PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK

TERRIBLY INTIMATE PORTRAITS

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC.

_Printed in the United States of America_

_To_

GLADYS BARBER

AUTHOR'S NOTE

In view of the fact that I have received many
tiresome and even carping letters from the
more captious critics of this child of my brain, I
feel in justice to myself and Miss Macnaughtan
that it is incumbent upon me to protest, in no
measured terms, against what is not only an organised
opposition and a pusillanimous display of
superficial egotism, but a dirty trick.

I have been taunted with my inaccuracies; I
have been called a fool; an idiot; an uneducated
dolt; and an illiterate cow! This is far from kind,
and I resent it.

My concentrated researches prove these memoirs
to be absolutely accurate in every historical detail.

I refute utterly these criticisms, fostered by
naught but the basest jealousy.

My parents and other relatives consider the book
excellent.

NOEL COWARD.

"THE HOLLIES,"
MARINE CRESCENT,
ROME.

FOREWORD

I have endeavoured in writing and compiling this book, to emphasize not
only actual deeds and historical facts, but to aspire to an even higher
goal--to conjure to life for a few brief moments the "Souls" of my
subjects, stark in all their deathless beauty. What task could be nobler
than to delve in these vivid famous lives and bring to light, perhaps,
some hitherto undiscovered motive--some delicate and radiant action
which so