Instead of a Letter
Published on 3. February 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-78378-743-2 (ISBN)
Description
Despite her family's ailing finances, Diana Athill's childhood - spent in a lovely house in Norfolk - was blissful. In 1932, she fell in love with Paul: an undergraduate who tutored her younger brother. Within several years, she had moved to Oxford to study and they were engaged to be married. Then everything fell apart in the cruellest possible way.
Athill's debut is also her most personal: a dissection of personal tragedy and the struggle to rebuild her life amid severe disappointment and loneliness. Unfolding throughout the Second World War, Instead of a Letter is an inspiring story of love and loss, heartbreak and hope, and a testament to her strength of character - her vivacity, honesty and perspicacity.
Athill's debut is also her most personal: a dissection of personal tragedy and the struggle to rebuild her life amid severe disappointment and loneliness. Unfolding throughout the Second World War, Instead of a Letter is an inspiring story of love and loss, heartbreak and hope, and a testament to her strength of character - her vivacity, honesty and perspicacity.
Reviews / Votes
Her first and still most perfect perfect book -- Carole Angier * Literary Review * The reader sees the transformation of the battered soul into a buoyant woman, open-minded and open-hearted -- Hilary Mantel * Spectator * This classic memoir ... well deserves another airing * Daily Mail * I first came across Diana Athill when I was 17. I picked up her memoir, Instead of a Letter, attracted to its title. I was driven on by avid inexperience, sure that I could find out from Athill what life itself was not yet ready to tell me about love, sex and - most impressively - heartbreak. I admired her elegant vigour and control of words in contrast to the freedom with which she wrote about herself. She became, in my reading life, a friend -- Kate Kellaway * Observer * One certainly admires both her and this truly excellent book, which is a masterpiece of confessional literature * Tablet * The documentary of one woman's ordinary and yet, in her telling, wholly extraordinary life -- Erica Wagner * The Times * A model mix of clear-eyed analysis and deep, unashamed feeling * Sunday Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
172 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78378-743-2 (9781783787432)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Persons
DIANA ATHILL was born in 1917. She helped Andre Deutsch establish the publishing company that bore his name and worked as an editor for Deutsch for four decades. She is the author of eight volumes of memoirs - Stet, Instead of a Letter, After a Funeral, Yesterday Morning, Make Believe, Somewhere Towards the End, Alive, Alive Oh!, A Florence Diary - a collection of letters, Instead of a Book, and a novel, Don't Look At Me Like That, all published by Granta, as well as a collection of short stories, Midsummer Night in the Workhouse (Persephone Books). In January 2009, she won the Costa Biography Award for Somewhere Towards the End, and was presented with an OBE. She died in January 2019.