'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'Weep No More'

<p>The expression ''femme fatale'' could have been coined for Barbara Skelton. She had many admirers - Peter Quennell, Feliks Topolski, Cyril Connolly, King Farouk, George Weidenfeld, Derek Jackson, the list is not exhaustive - some of whom she married. <br><br><b>Tears Before Bedtime</b> and <b>Weep No More</b> were first published separately in 1987 and 1989; they then appeared in one paperback volume in 1993. It is in this form they are being reissued in Faber Finds<i>.<br></i><br>As Jeremy Lewis, her literary executor, puts it these memoirs ''combine waspishness and wit in equal measure. She had a keen eye for the absurd, and a ruthless ability to skewer friends and foes alike with an exact and colourful turn of phrase ...''<br><br>''Uniquely savage memoirs of rackety highbrow life ... One feels Balzac is the novelist who would best do justice to all this in fictional form.'' Anthony Powell<br><br>''Provides some of the funniest reading I can remember.'' Auberon Waugh, <i>Independent </i><br><br>''The two volumes together make a memorable portrait. She deserves to have her likeness preserved and by a writer as good as herself.'' Frank Kermode, <i>Guardian</i></p>