BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 21 MAR. 1949
BRACERS 19863. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Dorset House.1
<London>
21.3.49

Dearest Colette

The package you wrote about2 has not arrived, so if you have not forwarded it please open it, take out the typescript and put it in or on my desk, and destroy the envelope and anything except typescript that it may contain.

Conrad3 and I start at 6:30 tomorrow morning. I shall hope for a letter — c/o Miss Daphne Phelps,4 Taormina. All my love, Colette dear.

Your
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200870.

• 2

  package you wrote about A typescript of BR’s Autobiography sent by Nalle Kielland. Whether it was the 1931 draft or (more likely) a recent version is unknown. Colette followed BR’s instructions. BR had resumed work on his autobiography after completing Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (B&R A83). BR met Nalle when her children went to Beacon Hill School. When he travelled to Norway in October 1948 they met again and began an affair. Nalle’s husband would not have approved, so the affair had to be conducted in secrecy. Colette took it upon herself to let Nalle know that BR’s wife, Peter, was in a difficult and unpredictable mood. Colette and Nalle first became friends through correspondence — their friendship would last for decades.

• 3

  Conrad Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, born 15 April 1937 to BR and his wife Patricia.

• 4

  Daphne Phelps The Russells had met Daphne Phelps, a fellow Briton stranded by World War II, when they were living in America. She stayed with them, both at Lake Tahoe in Nevada and also in Malvern, Pennsylvania. In 1947 she inherited Casa Cuseni and ran it as a pensione. See A House in Sicily (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1999); there is a chapter on BR.