8th January, 1946
Mr. Sidney Stark, Publisher
Stephens & Stark Ltd.
21 St. Jamesâs Place
London S.W.1
England
Dear Sidney,
Susan Scott is a wonder. We sold over forty copies of the book, which was very pleasant, but much more thrilling from my standpoint was the food. Susan managed to procure ration coupons for icing sugar and real eggs for the meringue. If all her literary luncheons are going to achieve these heights, I wonât mind touring about the country. Do you suppose that a lavish bonus could spur her on to butter? Letâs try itâyou may deduct the money from my royalties.
Now for my grim news. You asked me how work on my new book is progressing. Sidney, it isnât.
English Foibles seemed so promising at first. After all, one should be able to write reams about the Society to Protest the Glorification of the English Bunny. I unearthed a photograph of the Vermin Exterminatorsâ Trade Union, marching down an Oxford street with placards screaming âDown with Beatrix Potter!â But what is there to write about after a caption? Nothing, thatâs what.
I no longer want to write this bookâmy head and my heart just arenât in it. Dear as Izzy Bickerstaff isâand wasâto me, I donât want to write anything else under that name. I donât want to be considered a light-hearted journalist anymore. I do acknowledge that making readers laughâor at least chuckleâduring the war was no mean feat, but I donât want to do it anymore. I canât seem to dredge up any sense of proportion or balance these days, and God knows one cannot write humor without them.
In the meantime, I am very happy Stephens & Stark is making money on Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War. It relieves my conscience over the debacle of my Anne BrontĂŤ biography.
My thanks for everything and love,
Juliet
P.S. I am reading the collected correspondence of Mrs. Montagu. Do you know what that dismal woman wrote to Jane Carlyle? âMy dear little Jane, everybody is born with a vocation, and yours is to write charming little notes.â I hope Jane spat on her.
From Sidney to Juliet
10th January, 1946
Miss Juliet Ashton
23 Glebe Place
Chelsea
London S.W. 3
Dear Juliet:
Congratulations! Susan Scott said you took to the audience at the luncheon like a drunkard to rumâand they to youâso please stop worrying about your tour next week. I havenât a doubt of your success. Having witnessed your electrifying performance of âThe Shepherd Boy Sings in the Valley of Humiliationâ eighteen years ago, I know you will have every listener coiled around your little finger within moments. A hint: perhaps in this case, you should refrain from throwing the book at the audience when you finish.
Susan is looking forward to ushering you through bookshops from Bath to Yorkshire. And of course, Sophie is agitating for an extension of the tour into Scotland. Iâve told her in my most infuriating older-brother manner that It Remains To Be Seen. She misses you terribly, I know, but Stephens & Stark must be impervious to such considerations.
Iâve just received Izzyâs sales figures from London and the Home Countiesâthey are excellent. Again, congratulations!
Donât fret about English Foibles; better that your enthusiasm died now than after six months spent writing about bunnies. The crass commercial possibilities of the idea were attractive, but I agree that the topic would soon grow horribly fey. Another subjectâone youâll likeâwill occur to you.
Dinner one evening before you go? Say when.
Love,
Sidney
P.S. You write charming little notes.
11th January, 1946
Dear Sidney,
Yes, lovelyâcan it be somewhere on the river? I want oysters and champagne and roast beef, if obtainable; if not, a chicken will do. I am very happy that Izzyâs sales are good. Are they good enough that I donât have to pack a bag and leave London?
Since you and S&S have turned me into a moderately successful author, dinner must be my treat.
Love,
Juliet
P.S. I did not throw âThe Shepherd Boy Sings in the Valley of Humiliationâ at the audience. I threw it at the elocution mistress. I meant to cast it at her feet, but I missed.
From Juliet to Sophie Strachan
12th January, 1946
Mrs. Alexander Strachan
Feochan Farm
by Oban
Argyll
Dear Sophie,
Of course Iâd adore to see you, but I am a soul-less, will-less automaton. I have been ordered by Sidney to Bath, Colchester, Leeds, and several other garden spots I canât recall at the moment, and I canât just slither off to Scotland instead. Sidneyâs brow would lowerâhis eyes would narrowâhe would stalk. You know how nerve-racking it is when Sidney stalks.
I wish I could sneak away to your farm and have you coddle me. Youâd let me put my feet on the sofa, wouldnât you? And then youâd tuck blankets around me and bring me tea. Would Alexander mind a permanent resident on his sofa? Youâve told me he is a patient man, but perhaps he would find it annoying.
Why am I so melancholy? I should be delighted at the prospect of reading Izzy to an entranced audience. You know how I love talking about books, and you know how I adore receiving compliments. I should be thrilled. But the truth is that Iâm gloomyâgloomier than I ever was during the war. Everything is so broken, Sophie: the roads, the buildings, the people. Especially the people.
This is probably the aftereffect of a horrid dinner party I went to last night. The food was ghastly, but that was to be expected. It was the guests who unnerved meâthey were the most demoralizing collection of individuals Iâve ever encountered. The talk was of bombs and starvation. Do you remember Sarah Morecroft? She was there, all bones and gooseflesh and bloody lipstick. Didnât she use to be pretty? Wasnât she mad for that horse-riding fellow who went up to Cambridge? He was nowhere in evidence; sheâs married to a doctor with grey skin who clicks his tongue before he speaks. And he was a figure of wild romance compared to my dinner partner, who just happened to be a single man, presumably the last one on earthâoh Lord, how miserably mean-spirited I sound!
I swear, Sophie, I think thereâs something wrong with me. Every man I meet is intolerable. Perhaps I should set my sights lowerânot so low as the grey doctor who clicks, but a bit lower. I canât even blame it on the warâI was never very good at men, was I?
Do you suppose the St. Swithinâs furnace-man was my one true love? Since I never spoke to him, it seems unlikely, but at least it was a passion unscathed by disappointment. And he had that beautiful black hair. After that, you remember, came the Year of Poets. Sidneyâs quite snarky about those poets, though I donât see why, since he introduced me to them. Then poor Adrian. Oh, thereâs no need to recite the dread rolls to you, but Sophieâwhat is the matter with me? Am I too particular? I donât want to be married just to be married. I canât think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I canât talk to, or worse, someone I canât be silent with.
What a dreadful, complaining letter. You see? Iâve succeeded in making you feel relieved that I wonât be stopping in Scotland. But then again, I mayâmy fate rests with Sidney.
Kiss Dominic for me and tell him I saw a rat the size of a terrier the other day.
Love to Alexander and even more to you,
Juliet
From Dawsey Adams, Guernsey, Channel Islands, to Juliet
12th January, 1946
Miss Juliet Ashton
81 Oakley Street
Chelsea
London S.W. 3
Dear Miss Ashton,
My name is Dawsey Adams, and I live on my farm in St. Martinâs Parish on Guernsey. I know of you because I have an old book that once belonged to youâthe Selected Essays of Elia, by an author whose name in real life was Charles Lamb. Your name and address were written inside the front cover.
I will speak plainâI love Charles Lamb. My own book says Selected, so I wondered if that meant he had written other things to choose from? These are the pieces I want to read, and though the Germans are gone now, there arenât any bookshops left on Guernsey.
I want to ask a kindness of you. Could you send me the name and address of a bookshop in London? I would like to order more of Charles Lambâs writings by post. I would also like to ask if anyone has ever written his life story, and if they have, could a copy be found for me? For all his bright and turning mind, I think Mr. Lamb must have had a great sadness in his life.
Charles Lamb made me laugh during the German Occupation, especially when he wrote about the roast pig. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came into being because of a roast pig we had to keep secret from the German soldiers, so I feel a kinship to Mr. Lamb.
Hoping not to trouble you,
Dawsey Adams
P.S. My friend Mrs. Maugery bought a pamphlet that once belonged to you, too. It is called Was There a Burning Bush? A Defense of Moses and the Ten Commandments. She liked your margin note, âWord of God or crowd control???â Did you ever decide which?
From Juliet to Dawsey
15th January, 1946
Mr. Dawsey Adams
Les Vauxlarens
La BouvĂŠe
St. Martinâs, Guernsey
Dear Mr. Adams,
I no longer live on Oakley Street, but Iâm so glad that your letter found me and that my book found you. It was a sad wrench to part with the Selected Essays of Elia. I had two copies and a dire need of shelf-room, but I felt like a traitor selling it. You have soothed my conscience.
I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.
In the meantime, will you accept this small gift from me? It is his Selected Letters. I think it will tell you more about him than any biography ever could. E. V. Lucas sounds too stately to include my favorite passage from Lamb: âBuz, buz, buz, bum, bum, bum, wheeze, wheeze, wheeze, fen, fen, fen, tinky, tinky, tinky, crâannch! I shall certainly come to be condemned at last. I have been drinking too much for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a consumption and my religion getting faint.â Youâll find that in the Letters (itâs on page 244). They were the first Lamb I ever read, and Iâm ashamed to say I only bought the book because Iâd read elsewhere that a man named Lamb had visited his friend Leigh Hunt, in prison for libeling the Prince of Wales.
While there, Lamb helped Hunt paint the ceiling of his cell sky blue with white clouds. Next they painted a rose trellis up one wall. Then, I further discovered, Lamb offered money to help Huntâs family outside the prisonâthough he himself was as poor as a man could be. Lamb also taught Huntâs youngest daughter to say the Lordâs Prayer backward. You naturally want to learn everything you can about a man like that.
Thatâs what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. Itâs geometrically progressiveâall with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.
The red stain on the cover that looks like bloodâis blood. I got careless with my paper knife. The enclosed postcard is a reproduction of a painting of Lamb by his friend William Hazlitt.
If you have time to correspond with me, could you answer several questions? Three, in fact. Why did a roast pig dinner have to be kept a secret? How could a pig cause you to begin a literary society? And, most pressing of all, what is a potato peel pieâand why is it included in your societyâs name?
I have sub-let a flat at 23 Glebe Place, Chelsea, London S.W.3. My Oakley Street flat was bombed in 1945 and I still miss it. Oakley Street was wonderfulâI could see the Thames out of three of my windows. I know that I am fortunate to have any place at all to live in London, but I much prefer whining to counting my blessings. I am glad you thought of me to do your Elia hunting.
Yours sincerely,
Juliet Ashton
P.S. I never could make up my mind about Mosesâit still bothers me.
From Juliet to Sidney
18th January, 1946
Dear Sidney,
This isnât a letter: itâs an apology. Please forgive my moaning about the teas and luncheons you set up for Izzy. Did I call you a tyrant? I take it all backâI love Stephens & Stark for sending me out of London.
Bath is a glorious town: lovely crescents of white, upstanding houses instead of Londonâs black, gloomy buildings orâworse stillâpiles of rubble that were once buildings. It is bliss to breathe in clean, fresh air with no coal smoke and no dust. The weather is cold, but it isnât Londonâs dank chill. Even the people on the street look differentâupstanding, like their houses, not grey and hunched like Londoners.
Susan said the guests at Abbotâs book tea enjoyed themselves immenselyâand I know I did. I was able to un-stick my tongue from the roof of my mouth after the first two minutes and began to have quite a good time.
Susan and I are off tomorrow for bookshops in Colchester, Norwich, Kingâs Lynn, Bradford, and Leeds.
Love and thanks,
Juliet
From Juliet to Sidney
21st January, 1946
Dear Sidney,
Night-time train travel is wonderful again! No standing in the corridors for hours, no being shunted off for a troop train to pass, and above all, no black-out curtains. All the windows we passed were lighted, and I could snoop once more. I missed it so terribly during the war. I felt as if we had all turned into moles scuttling along in our separate tunnels. I donât consider myself a real peeperâthey go in for bedrooms, but itâs families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright sofa cushions.
There was a nasty, condescending man in Tillmanâs bookshop today. After my talk about Izzy, I asked if anyone had questions. He literally leapt from his seat to go nose-to-nose with meâhow was it, he demanded, that I, a mere woman, dared to bastardize the name of Isaac Bickerstaff? âThe true Isaac Bickerstaff, noted journalist, nay the sacred heart and soul of eighteenth-century literature: dead now and his name desecrated by you.â
Before I could muster a word, a woman in the back row jumped to her feet. âOh, sit down! You canât desecrate a person who never was! Heâs not dead because he was never alive! Isaac Bickerstaff was a pseudonym for Joseph Addisonâs Spectator columns! Miss Ashton can take up any pretend name she wants toâso shut up!â What a valiant defenderâhe left the store in a hurry.
Sidney, do you know a man named Markham V. Reynolds, Jr.? If you donât, will you look him up for meâWhoâs Who, the Domesday Book, Scotland Yard? Failing those, he may simply be in the Telephone Directory. He sent a beautiful bunch of mixed spring flowers to me at the hotel in Bath, a dozen white roses to my train, and a pile of red roses to Norwichâall with no message, only his engraved card.
Come to that, how does he know where Susan and I are staying? What trains we are taking? All his flowers have met me upon my arrival. I donât know whether to feel flattered or hunted.
Love,
Juliet
23rd January, 1946
Dear Sidney,
Susan just gave me the sales figures for IzzyâI can scarcely believe them. I honestly thought everyone would be so weary of the war that no one would want a remembrance of itâand certainly not in a book. Happily, and once again, you were right and I was wrong (it half-kills me to admit this).
Traveling, talking before a captive audience, signing books, and meeting strangers is exhilarating. The women Iâve met have told me such war stories of their own, I almost wish I had my column back. Yesterday, I had a lovely, gossipy chat with a Norwich lady. She has four daughters in their teens, and just last week, the eldest was invited to tea at the cadet school in town. Arrayed in her finest frock and spotless white gloves, the girl made her way to the school, stepped over the threshold, took one look at the sea of shining cadet faces before herâand fainted dead away! The poor child had never seen so many males in one place in her life. Think of itâa whole generation grown up without dances or teas or flirting.
I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellersâbooksellers really are a special breed. No one in their right mind would take up clerking in a bookstore for the salary, and no one in his right mind would want to own oneâthe margin of profit is too small. So, it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do itâalong with first dibs on the new books.
Do you remember the first job your sister and I had in London? In crabby Mr. Hawkeâs secondhand bookshop? How I loved himâheâd simply unpack a box of books, hand one or two to us and say, âNo cigarette ashes, clean handsâand for Godâs sake, Juliet, none of your margin notes! Sophie, dear, donât let her drink coffee while she reads.â And off weâd go with new books to read.
It was amazing to me then, and still is, that so many people who wander into bookshops donât really know what theyâre afterâthey only want to look around and hope to see a book that will strike their fancy. And then, being bright enough not to trust the publisherâs blurb, they will ask the book clerk the three questions: (1) What is it about? (2) Have you read it? (3) Was it any good?
Real dyed-in-the-wool booksellersâlike Sophie and meâcanât lie. Our faces are always a dead giveaway. A lifted brow or curled lip reveals that itâs a poor excuse for a book, and the clever customers ask for a recommendation instead, whereupon we frog-march them over to a particular volume and command them to read it. If they read it and despise it, theyâll never come back. But if they like it, theyâre customers for life.
Are you taking notes? You shouldâa publisher should send not just one readerâs copy to a bookshop, but several, so that all the staff can read it, too.
Mr. Seton told me today that Izzy Bickerstaff makes an ideal present for both someone you like and someone you donât like but have to give a present to anyway. He also claimed that 30 percent of all books bought are bought as gifts. Thirty percent???
Did he lie?
Has Susan told you what else she has managed besides our tour? Me. I hadnât known her half an hour before she told me my make-up, my clothes, my hair, and my shoes were drab, all drab. The war was over, hadnât I heard?
She took me to Madame Helenaâs for a haircut; it is now short and curly instead of long and lank. I had a light rinse, tooâSusan and Madame said it would bring out the golden highlights in my âbeautiful chestnut curls.â But I know better; itâs meant to cover any grey hairs (four, by my count) that have begun to creep in. I also bought a jar of face cream, a lovely scented hand lotion, a new lipstick, and an eye-lash curlerâwhich makes my eyes cross whenever I use it.
Then Susan suggested a new dress. I reminded her that the Queen was very happy wearing her 1939 wardrobe, so why shouldnât I be? She said the Queen doesnât need to impress strangersâbut I do. I felt like a traitor to crown and country; no decent woman has new clothesâbut I forgot that the moment I saw myself in the mirror. My first new dress in four years, and such a dress! It is the exact color of a ripe peach and falls in lovely folds when I move. The saleslady said it had âGallic Chicâ and I would too, if I bought it. So I did. New shoes are going to have to wait, since I spent almost a yearâs worth of clothing coupons on the dress.
Between Susan, my hair, my face, and my dress, I no longer look a listless, bedraggled thirty-two-year-old. I look a lively, dashing, haute-couturĂŠd (if this isnât a French verb, it should be) thirty.
Apropos of my new dress and no new shoesâdoesnât it seem shocking to have more stringent rationing after the war than during the war? I realize that hundreds of thousands of people all over Europe must be fed, housed, and clothed, but privately I resent it that so many of them are Germans.
I am still without any ideas for a book I want to write. It is beginning to depress me. Do you have any suggestions?
Since I am in what I consider to be the North Iâm going to place a trunk call to Sophie in Scotland tonight. Any messages for your sister? Your brother-in-law? Your nephew?
This is the longest letter Iâve ever writtenâyou neednât reply in kind.
Love,
Juliet
25th January, 1946
Dear Sidney,
Donât believe the newspaper reports. Juliet was not arrested and taken away in handcuffs. She was merely reproved by one of Bradfordâs constables, and he could barely keep a straight face.
She did throw a teapot at Gilly Gilbertâs head, but donât believe his claim that she scalded him; the tea was cold. Besides, it was more of a skim-by than a direct hit. Even the hotel manager refused to let us compensate him for the teapotâit was only dented. He was, however, forced by Gillyâs screams to call in the constabulary.
Herewith the story, and I take full responsibility for it. I should have refused Gillyâs request for an interview with Juliet. I knew what a loathsome person he was, one of those unctuous little worms who work for The London Hue and Cry. I also knew that Gilly and the LH&C were horribly jealous of the Spectatorâs success with the Izzy Bickerstaff columnsâand of Juliet.
We had just returned to the hotel from the Bradyâs Booksmith party for Juliet. We were both tiredâand full of ourselvesâwhen up popped Gilly from a chair in the lounge. He begged us to have tea with him. He begged for a short interview with âour own wonderful Miss Ashtonâor should I say Englandâs very own Izzy Bickerstaff?â His smarm alone should have alerted me, but it didnâtâI wanted to sit down, gloat over Julietâs success, and have a cream tea.
So we did. The talk was going smoothly enough, and my mind was wandering when I heard Gilly say, ââŚÂ you were a war widow yourself, werenât you? Or ratherâalmost a war widowâas good as. You were to marry a Lieutenant Rob Dartry, werenât you? Had made arrangements for the ceremony, hadnât you?â
Juliet said, âI beg your pardon, Mr. Gilbert.â You know how polite she is.
âI donât have it wrong, do I? You and Lieutenant Dartry did apply for a marriage license. You did make an appointment to be married at the Chelsea Register Office on 13th December, 1942, at 11:00 A.M. You did book a table for luncheon at the Ritzâonly you never showed up for any of it. Itâs perfectly obvious that you jilted Lieutenant Dartry at the altarâpoor fellowâand sent him off alone and humiliated, back to his ship, to carry his broken heart to Burma, where he was killed not three months later.â
I sat up, my mouth gaping open. I just looked on helplessly as Juliet attempted to be civil: âI didnât jilt him at the altarâit was the day before. And he wasnât humiliatedâhe was relieved. I simply told him that I didnât want to be married after all. Believe me, Mr. Gilbert, he left a happy manâdelighted to be rid of me. He didnât slink back to his ship, alone and betrayedâhe went straight to the CCB Club and danced all night with Belinda Twining.â
Well, Sidney, surprised as Gilly was, he was not daunted. Little rodents like Gilly never are, are they? He quickly guessed that he was on to an even juicier story for his paper.
âOH-HO!â he smirked, âWhat was it, then? Drink? Other women? A touch of the old Oscar Wilde?â
That was when Juliet threw the teapot. You can imagine the hubbub that ensuedâthe lounge was full of other people having teaâhence, I am sure, the newspapers learning of it.
I thought his headline, âIZZY BICKERSTAFF GOES TO WARâAGAIN! Reporter Wounded in Hotel Bun-Fight,â was a bit harsh, but not too bad. But âJULIETâS FAILED ROMEOâA FALLEN HERO IN BURMAâ was sick-making, even for Gilly Gilbert and the Hue and Cry.
Juliet is worried she may have embarrassed Stephens & Stark, but she is literally sick over Rob Dartryâs name being slung around in this fashion. All I could get her to say to me was that Rob Dartry was a good man, a very good manânone of it was his faultâand he did not deserve this!
Did you know Rob Dartry? Of course, the drink/Oscar Wilde business is pure rot, but why did Juliet call off the wedding? Do you know why? And would you tell me if you did? Of course you wouldnât; I donât know why Iâm even asking.
The gossip will die down of course, but does Juliet have to be in London for the thick of it? Should we extend our tour to Scotland? I admit Iâm of two minds about this; the sales there have been spectacular, but Juliet has worked so hard at these teas and luncheonsâit is not easy to get up in front of a roomful of strangers and praise yourself and your book. Sheâs not used to this hoopla like I am and is, I think, very tired.
Sunday weâll be in Leeds, so let me know then about Scotland.
Of course, Gilly Gilbert is despicable and vile and I hope he comes to a bad end, but he has pushed Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War onto the Best Seller List. Iâm tempted to write him a thank-you note.
Yours in haste,
Susan
P.S. Have you found out who Markham V. Reynolds is yet? He sent Juliet a forest of camellias today.
Telegram from Juliet to Sidney
AM TERRIBLY SORRY TO HAVE EMBARRASSED YOU AND STEPHENS & STARK. LOVE, JULIET
From Sidney to Juliet
26th January, 1946
Miss Juliet Ashton
The Queens Hotel
City Square
Leeds
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