Charming and unaffected; the author knows what she is talking about. The book consists of quotations from English authors from Chaucer to Nancy Mitford with appended comments from Ms Cooper. It is divided into sections from Childhood to Death and is prettily produced with Gainsborough's "The Morning Walk" as a frontispiece, sensitive line drawings by Don Grant, and a suitably decollete cartouche of the author on the front cover of the jacket. ( )