Filling in the gaps left between his previous memoirs, as well as highlighting new episodes, Backcloth explores the patterns of pleasure and pain that have made up Bogarde's extraordinary life. It is based on personal letters, notebooks and diaries, covering many aspects of a celebrated life. We share experiences from his family home in Hampstead through to his farmhouse retreat in Provence. This memoir highlights the people, emotions and episodes that made him into the man that so many loved. It is an especially searching and intimate volume of his acclaimed memoirs. Written with all the honesty, wit and intelligence that have made Dirk Bogarde such a popular writer, Backcloth is both eloquent and touching.

First published in 1986, this is the fourth volume of Dirk Bogarde's memoirs.