Birth gave her pomp and circumstance; nature gave her extraordinary beauty, sensitivity, and talent; love gave her marriage, also adorers: everything combined to give Diana Manners (later Diana Cooper) front-row seats to most of the dramatic events of our time.

The first volume of her autobiography, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, drew praise on every side. In this, the second volume of her autobiography, the early rainbow of this life merges into the light of common day. But Diana Cooper's day has never been common; its light never less than dazzling.

Here, in place of the gilded era of the early century, is the more familiar period of the mid-twenties up to World War II. Here is much of America, the plushy years, the plushy people, coast-to-coast, as seen by the sought-after star of Max Reinhardt's famous Miracle. Here is a familiar England: a reigning king and "the woman I love" as yachting companions; intimate dinners with the Winston Churchills; Duff Cooper's great career from M.P. to First Lord of the Admiralty to Ambassador to France. Here is luxury: yachts, houses, jewels, exotic travel. And here is the many-faced shadow of war seen from the top of the world. And here, over and above all this factual history, is the moving theme of a woman's life, lived always to the hilt, richly, and recorded in all its doubts and fears, as in all its glory, not only with beauty but with truth.