Oh! dear, Gershon, (observe the comma – I am not being forward!) I wish you weren’t so much cleverer than I am. When I first knew you, I was always in a state of waiting breathlessly for you to find out that I wasn’t clever, & erase me from the tables of your brain for ever – then I thought oh: well you must have found out by this time & were kindly overlooking it – but the more I saw of you, the more things I discovered you could do that I couldn’t – you could understand music, and pass your driving test at the second attempt, and play games, & follow the Hebrew in the prayer book without using your finger, & be forward without being impertinent, & sing in the street without being foolish – & all kinds of other things too – but this last display of versatility is too much – you can type as well – and in two colours – and two different sizes! What can I do but say humbly that it’s been an honour to know you? (3 August 1939)
I have been longing for a really good collection of letters to read but Love in the Blitz by Eileen Alexander is exceeding my every expectation. Alexander, a recent Cambridge graduate, was recovering from a car accident during the summer of 1939 when the letters to her future husband Gershon Ellenbogen begin and from the beginning they are extraordinary. Bursting with life and humour, I can barely stand to put them down to do anything else – except perhaps pop by here to share a few snippets. Expect more dispatches in coming days!
The Captive Reader 
Epistolary novels can be great or thundering dull. Are these one-sided of a volley of exchanges?
Only Eileen’s side of the correspondence has survived but you don’t feel the lack of Gershon’s at all. Amazingly, the letters were discovered on eBay – such a find!
[…] a collection of letters written by Alexander during the war to her future husband, following the first one. So here we go – a delightful account of Alexander’s first and far from hum-drum […]