Terribly Intimate Portraits

COMPILED BY
WITH SIXTEEN REPRODUCTIONS FROM OLD MASTERS BY
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
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.