Duff Cooper

© National Portrait Gallery

Alfred Duff Cooper (1890–1954) was a statesman, diplomat, and historian. He was a decorated officer during the First World War and entered Parliament in 1923. He remained a politician until 1938, when he resigned in protest at Britain's appeasement policy toward Nazi Germany. Called back to office by Winston Churchill in 1940, his wartime career culminated in his appointment as Ambassador to France. Shortly before his death he was made 1st Viscount Norwich. He was married to Lady Diana Cooper, the famed society debutant, actress, and writer. Operation Heartbreak is his only novel. 

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Operation Heartbreak
Operation Heartbreak
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Duff Cooper

Afterword by Michael Hofmann

A perfectly told tale of defeat and glory—and a paean to gallantry in the face of the absurd—inspired by a real-life secret mission during World War II.

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Creditable, Surprising, Abundantly and Elegantly Good: Michael Hofmann on Duff Cooper's Only Novel
Creditable, Surprising, Abundantly and Elegantly Good: Michael Hofmann on Duff Cooper's Only Novel

Duff Cooper (1890–1953): soldier, diplomat, parliamentarian, cabinet minister, man of letters. Also gambler, lover, and bon viveur. He came from a family flecked with elopements and illegitimacies, though also (“a dash of Hanoverian blood”) with ancestral ties to the British royal family . . . Duff Cooper was a product of Eton and New College, Oxford; a war hero, in what appears to have been a somewhat chaotic solitary action in the so-called “Battle of the Mist” on the Albert Canal, for which he received a DSO; and a celebrity husband as the successful wooer of a famous British beauty, Lady Diana Cooper, all by 1920.