The backstory: A Case in Companionship (1)
For the question of how Laurie King came to publish Miss Russell’s Memoirs, “A Case in Correspondence” is essential reading: a series of postcards, letters, and newspaper clippings dating to 1992. Along with “My Story” (see yesterday’s blog post) the two additions to the Russell Memoirs go far to explain the eventual publication of the Memoirs, albeit as fiction...
This series of twenty documents begins, innocently enough, with a post card from Miss Russell to her missing husband:
Transcription:
3 May 1992
Holmes—I trust you reached home without difficulty, following my crass abandonment of you on the banks of the Thames. As I expected, I had no problem creating the façade of aged and infirm old woman—one of my rescuers even insisted on pressing a £5 note into the cabbie’s hand. I will be here at the Vicissitude for two or three days, completing that research the Americans interrupted. If you wish anything from Town, a note will reach me in the usual way. R
PS. I discovered a box of ancient postal cards behind the shot-gun shells in the Brompton Road bolt-hole, which I am appropriating for the purpose. Do you never clear anything out?
**
The complete “Case in Correspondence” is in The Mary Russell Companion, here.
I must be missing something…wouldn’t Holmes be 138 years old in 1992? And why on earth would you put info like that on a postcard for all to see, anyway?
The post card does seems a bit bizarre. Perhaps date & context is totally in code, revealing
Nothing more than a chuckle from unauthorized eyes. Though I am surprised Mary
Would even consider drawing any attention to her possible absence.
Still eagerly looking forward to “THE COMPANION” being available in PRINT!!!