DU MAURIER DAPHNE: (1907-1989) English novelist. T.L.S., Daphne, two pages, 8vo, Kilmarth, Par, Cornwall, 25^th July 1973, to Gwenllyan Davies. Du Maurier states that it was very nice to hear from her old friend ('…what ages ago it all seems, Alexandria, the cocktail parties, drives to the desert, dinners aboard ship - the Lot. Fun now in retrospect, but quite hard going at the time') and also sends her sympathy on the death of her husband, commenting 'The loneliness is frightful at first, but somehow one gets through, and adapts, and I think it did help in my own case when I moved here in '69 and somehow faced a new outlook. Also, pegging away at various books keep me occupied', further remarking 'Yes, indeed, I remember the poems that Reginald and I exchanged, and they were most amusing. I thought I had kept them, and looked in my desk this morning, but no trace', and also writing of her family, 'You will remember my precocious small girl Tessa. Now such a dear, forty this year (!) and happy in her second marriage, to David Montgomery, old Monty's son. She has two 'teen-age children, typical of the young of today! You never saw my younger brood, Flave and Kits. Kits comes next week with his charming Irish wife and three small boys, so there will be plenty of life in the house', and the passing of her own husband, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning, 'Boy's last year was rather wretched, he had a gangrene foot, fearful pain, and had to have it off, and never really picked up, but died very suddenly off a coronary thrombosis, and perhaps for his sake it was better so, though he had been so plucky'. Accompanied by the original envelope. About EX