The voice, the dressing-gown, the cigarette in its holder, remain unmistakeable. These were props and costumes for a series of parts that Noël Coward performed to perfection: idiosyncratic actor, wealthy playboy, wartime patriot, and national treasure. Above all he was a writer and composer, of immortal comedies and classic songs. Rarely a week passes when Private Lives, Hay Fever, or Blithe Spirit is not in production; phrases from his lyrics – “Mad About the Boy”, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” – are in the public consciousness. Oliver Soden’s sparkling and inventive biography, the first in nearly thirty years, digs beneath the legend, revealing a man both witty and grave, passionate and disenchanted. Granted exclusive and unrestricted access to Coward’s unpublished diaries and correspondence, Soden has delved into private and governmental archives to narrate in more detail than ever before Coward’s hair-raising espionage career – and his tumultuous, necessarily secret, love affairs. Equally at home in words and music, and with a wit and style worthy of his subject, Soden offers fresh readings of plays both familiar and forgotten, proving that Coward was not simply a “talent to amuse” but a daring and radical figure, who unveiled painful, paradoxical truths about love, class, and sexuality. As T.S. Eliot wrote in 1954: “there are things you can learn from Noël Coward that you won’t learn from Shakespeare”.