A Case in Companionship (3)
“A Case in Correspondence” is a series of twenty postcards, letters, and newspaper clippings dating to 1992. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, the first Russell Memoir, was published two years later. This collection of correspondence, along with the previously published “My Story”, explain how Laurie R. King came to have Miss Russell’s multi-volume autobiography–although neither story explains adequately why the Memoirs appeared as fiction...
Transcription:
MARY RUSSELL
CARE OF ST HILDAS COLLEGE OXFORD
RUSSELL I AM AT THE OXFORD DIGS OF THE GREAT NEPHEW OF OUR MONACLED [sic] FRIEND STOP SEEMS I HAVE HAD TO PULL OUT VARIOUS STOPS TO CONVINCE HER MAJESTYS WATCHDOGS NOT TO PUT MY WIFE IN THE TOWER FOR CRIMES AGAINST THE EMPIRE STOP YOU ARE EXPECTED FOR TEA STOP UNFORTUNATELY THE SAME COOK REIGNS THUS BRING SCONES FROM COVERED MARKET OR RISK ANOTHER BROKEN TOOTH STOP HOLMES
**
For the rest of “A Case in Correspondence”, as well as discussions about the Memoirs being categorized as fiction, The Mary Russell Companion is available here.
Would “our monocled friend” be Peter Wimsey? That would make his great nephew either Charlie’s son or a child of either Mary or Harriet Parker?
Hi Diane. Hmm, must be one or the other, right?
Given that Russell is so closely identified with Oxford, and that she was still a relatively young woman in the mid-1960s, might we look forward to her meeting with a certain young detective constable in the Oxford City/Thames Valley Police Department….or a slightly older version of the same by the 1980s? Perhaps her observational techniques and Holmes’ methods were passed along at some point…? The fellow I have in mind also spent a couple of years as a cipher clerk …surely that is meaningful.
Rick, I’m sure Miss Russell has met all sorts of people in Oxford, both “fictional” and real life…