DU MAURIER DAPHNE: (1907-1989) British Author. T.L.S., Daphne, two pages, 8vo, Menabilly, Par ...

DU MAURIER DAPHNE: (1907-1989) British Author. T.L.S., Daphne, two pages, 8vo, Menabilly, Par, Cornwall, 14th June 1963, to Meaburn [Staniland]. Du Maurier thanks her correspondent for his 'Be Kind to Authors memo' and continues 'I feel its awfully cheating to go on with that Compton Collier photograph. I've been reckoning up, and I believe it was taken 18 years ago! I remember her coming her[e] about 1945, and taking me and the children when they were still quite small, and we had only been here a year or so - I think I was writing The King's General at the time. Readers will have me up for fraud unless its changed'. Du Maurier also states that she is feeling better since she last wrote 'with something called pharyngal laryngitis, which turns out to be a sort of virus', further remarking 'I have nothing of any interest to tell you, as life is somehow static (not estatic [sic]) but pleasant, as long as the sun shines'. The author also enquires if Penguin ever published War in Val D'Orcia by Iris Origo, explaining 'Just read her Life of San Bernadino (sic) and it has made me want to read the book about the war years on her husband's estate near Siena, where I was in April' and in concluding comments 'My old Glass-Blowers has been doing amazingly well in America, I don't quite know why. Not much notice taken of it here'. VG

Meaburn Staniland (1914-1992) English Editor, Author and Antiquarian Bookseller who worked at Penguin books in the 1960s and 1970s.