CLARISSA

Clarissa Eden, Countess of Avon, was the niece of Winston Churchill and married to Prime Minister Anthony Eden. She once famously said: '' For the past few weeks I have really felt as if the Suez Canal was flowing through my drawing-room.'' Distant and dismissive, she was beautiful and well connected. With her impressive intellect and acerbic wit, she was a highly influential muse to many leading figures over several decades. At Oxford in the 1940s she fascinated dons and undergraduates alike. She went on to work in the film world for Alexander Korda and for George Weidenfeld at Contact Magazine. She was a close friend of Cecil Beaton, James Pope-Hennessy, Lucian Freud, Isaiah Berlin, and Lord Goodman. She fascinated Greta Garbo. After an early Bohemian life, she became a politically active wife to Eden when he was Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, particularly during the Suez Crisis in 1956. Her death at 101 in 2021 has opened the way for this enthralling and revealing biography by the widely admired biographer Hugo Vickers. He knew her well for over 40 years, and to him she consigned her private papers and sharply written diaries with permission to publish them as he pleased. These papers are revelatory and filled with surprises - not least about her uncle, Winston Churchill. The book also contains first hand contributions from friends such as Antonia Fraser. Clarissa Eden''s story sheds invaluable light on a rapidly vanishing age and an extraordinary woman.

Préface
The fascinating life of the enigmatic and original Clarissa Eden by leading biographer Hugo Vickers. The wife of Prime Minister Anthony Eden and niece of Winston Churchill, Clarissa was at the centre of British political and cultural life for much of the 20th century, friend and muse to many of the leading figures of the day.

Auteur
Hugo Vickers is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and an acknowledged expert on the British Royal Family. He has written biographies of the Queen Mother, Cecil Beaton, Vivien Leigh, Princess Andrew of Greece and the Duchess of Windsor. His book The Kiss won the 1996 Stern Silver Pen Award for Non-Fiction. His recent bestsellers have included The Quest For Queen Mary and The Sphinx - the life of Gladys, the Duchess of Marlborough.

Texte du rabat

The fascinating life of the enigmatic and original Clarissa Eden, wife of Prime Minister Anthony Eden, niece of Winston Churchill, muse to many of the leading figures of the day, by leading biographer Hugo Vickers.