Read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for Free Online

seems impossible now that someone could have drawn a cartoon about Doodlebugs, and that everyone, including me, could have laughed at it. But we did. The old adage—humour is the best way to make the unbearable bearable—may be true.
    Has Mr Hastings found the Lucas biography for you yet?
    Yours sincerely,
    Juliet Ashton
    From Juliet to Markham Reynolds
Mr Markham Reynolds
63 Halkin Street
London SW1
    4th February 1946
    Dear Mr Reynolds,
    I captured your delivery boy in the act of depositing a clutch of pink carnations on to my doorstep. I seized him and threatened him until he confessed your address—you see, Mr Reynolds, you are not the only one who can inveigle innocent employees. I hope you don’t sack him; he seems a nice boy, and he really had no alternative—I menaced him with
Remembrance of Things Past.
    Now I can thank you for the dozens of flowers you’ve sent me—it’s been years since I’ve seen such roses, such camellias, such orchids, and you can have no idea how they lift my heart in this shivering winter. Why I deserve to live in a bower, when everyone else has to be satisfied with bedraggled leafless trees and slush, I don’t know, but I’m perfectly delighted to do so.
    Yours sincerely,
    Juliet Ashton
    From Markham Reynolds to Juliet
5th February 1946
    Dear Miss Ashton,
    I didn’t fire the delivery boy—I promoted him. He got me what I couldn’t manage to get for myself: an introduction to you.The way I see it, your note is a figurative handshake and the preliminaries are now over. I hope you’re of the same opinion, as it will save me the trouble of wangling an invitation to Lady Bascomb’s next dinner party on the off-chance you might be there. Your friends are a suspicious lot, especially that fellow Stark, who said it wasn’t his job to reverse the direction of the Lend Lease and refused to bring you to the cocktail party I threw at the
View
office.
    God knows, my intentions are pure, or at least, non-mercenary. The simple truth of it is that you’re the only female writer who makes me laugh. Your Izzy Bickerstaff columns were the wittiest work to come out of the war, and I want to meet the woman who wrote them.
    If I swear that I won’t kidnap you, will you do me the honour of dining with me next week? You pick the evening—I’m entirely at your disposal.
    Yours,
    Markham Reynolds
    From Juliet to Markham Reynolds
6th February 1946
    Dear Mr Reynolds,
    I am no proof against compliments, especially compliments about my writing. I’ll be delighted to dine with you. Thursday next?
    Yours sincerely,
    Juliet Ashton
    From Markham Reynolds to Juliet
7th February 1946
    Dear Juliet,
    Thursday’s too far away. Monday? Claridge’s? Seven?
    Yours,
    Mark
    P.S. I don’t suppose you have a telephone, do you?
    From Juliet to Markham Reynolds
7th February 1946
    Dear Mr Reynolds,
    All right—Monday, Claridge’s, seven.
    I do have a telephone. It’s in Oakley Street under a pile of rubble that used to be my flat. I’m only renting here, and my landlady, Mrs Olive Burns, possesses the sole telephone on the premises. If you would like to chat with her, I can give you her number.
    Yours sincerely,
Juliet Ashton
    From Dawsey to Juliet
7th February 1946
    Dear Miss Ashton,
    I’m certain the Guernsey Literary Society would like to be included in your article for
The Times
. I have asked Mrs Maugery to write to you about our meetings, as she is an educated lady and her words will sound more at home inan article than mine. I don’t think we are much like literary societies in London.
    Mr Hastings hasn’t found a copy of the Lucas biography yet, but I had a postcard from him saying, ‘Hard on the trail. Don’t give up.’ He is a kind man, isn’t he?
    I’m heaving slates for the Crown Hotel’s new roof. The owners are hoping that tourists may want to come back this summer. I am