Endorsements

Noël Coward image from

Letters to the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement  (May 11 2018), p. 6:

"Endorsements"

letter from
Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Combe Down, Bath.

Sir - Not quite the last word on endorsements, as Gabriel Josipovici says, quoting Groucho Marx (Letters, May 4). In 1949, Monica Baldwin published I leap over the Wall: a return to the world after twenty-eight years in a convent, an account of her life in an enclosed order, and her departure therefrom. The publishers sent proof copies seeking endorsements, or what the Americans call blurbs and we used to call puffs, to various notabilities, including Noël Coward. He replied that he would be happy to be quoted: "This is the book which has confirmed me in the wisdom of my decision not to become a nun."