Editing Mary Wesley (section)

===Final years===
Only in the last year of her life did she agree to have her biography written. She cooperated fully with [[Patrick Marnham]], on the condition that nothing would be published before her death.<ref>Rebecca Seal, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jun/18/biography.features She knew how to grow old disgracefully] in [[The Observer]] dated 18 June 2006. Retrieved 28 November 2018</ref> She provided her reminiscences from her sick bed, and commented: "Have you any idea of the pleasure of lying in bed for six months, talking about yourself to a very intelligent man? My deepest regret was that I was too old and ill to take him into bed with me." The authorised biography (published in 2006) is entitled ''Wild Mary'', a reference both to her childhood nickname and to her sex life as a young woman, when she had many lovers. The biography holds nothing back. As Wesley stated: "It was a flighty generation.... [W]e had been brought up so repressed. War freed us. We felt if we didn't do it now, we might never get another chance."<ref>Marnham 2006, p. 86.</ref> "It got to the state where one woke up in the morning, reached across the pillow and thought, 'Let's see. Who is it this time?'"<ref>Marnham 2006, p. 89.</ref>

But Wesley finally did get tired of her wartime lifestyle, realizing that her way of life had become too excessive: "too many lovers, too much to drink...I was on my way to become a very nasty person".<ref>Marnham 2006, p. 104.</ref> When her son Toby Eady read the book, he was so amazed at how much he did not know about his mother that he did not speak to anyone for a week.<ref>{{cite news | first = Jane | last = Sullivan | title = There is nothing like a dame | newspaper = [[The Sunday Age]] | date = 3 September 2006}}</ref>

Late in life Wesley ordered her own coffin from a local craftswoman and asked it be finished in red Chinese lacquer. She kept it as a coffee table for some time in her sitting room. She suggested that she be photographed sitting up in it for a feature in the magazine ''[[Country Living]],'' but the idea was politely declined.<ref>Marnham 2006, p. 223.</ref>

She was appointed a [[Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] (CBE) in the [[1995 New Year Honours]], for services to literature.<ref>United Kingdom list: {{London Gazette |date=30 December 1994 |supp=1 |issue=53893 |pages=10}}</ref> Due to her association with the town Wesley was chosen in 2007 to appear on the 1 [[Totnes pound]] note.<ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Meet-new-faces-local-currency/story-21152600-detail/story.html | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140810153519/http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Meet-new-faces-local-currency/story-21152600-detail/story.html | archive-date = 10 August 2014 | title = Meet the new faces of local currency | work = Western Morning News | date = 28 May 2014}}</ref>