She made Hugo Vickers her literary executor in 1985, meaning that he had complete access to her diaries and letters' - Lynn Barber, The Daily Telegraph. 'It is hard to think of another living author with such a wide knowledge of Clarissa's world, and Vickers's diligent, skilful biography is unfailingly readable - John Jolliffe, The Spectator-----Clarissa Eden, Countess of Avon, wife of Prime Minister Anthony Eden, once famously said: 'For the past few weeks I have really felt as if the Suez Canal was flowing through my drawing-room.'With her impressive intellect and acerbic wit, she was a highly influential muse to many leading figures over several decades. 

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 consigned her revealing private papers and sharply written diaries to him. Here also are 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.