BR TO STEWART HOLBROOK, [5 NOV. 1951]
BRACERS 55992. ALS(X). U. of Washington
Edited by A.G. Bone. Reviewed by S. Turcon

<letterhead>1
The King Cotton
Greensboro
North Carolina
[As from] 41 Queen’s Road
Richmond, Surrey, England

Dear Dr. Holbrook2

Your letter3 completely puzzles me. I was not in Vancouver or anywhere in the Western hemisphere in 1920.4 The only time I have spoken in Vancouver was (I think) in 1929,5 and then there was no trouble. There is some mistake, but I can throw no light on it.

Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell

• 1

  [document] The letter was edited from a photocopy of the signed original among the recipient’s papers in the University of Washington. It is written in BR’s hand on a single leaf of letterhead from the King Cotton Hotel, Greensboro, NC. The date has been inferred from the location of the hotel where BR stayed for one night only, on 5 November 1950. Immediately above the King Cotton’s letterhead an unidentified hand (presumably the recipient’s) noted that BR’s reply was “Received Nov. 10, 1951”.

• 2

  [recipient] Stewart Hall Holbrook (1893–1964) was a prolific freelance writer, mainly of popular histories of the Pacific Northwest, where (in British Columbia) he worked in logging for some time after the First World War — in which he served in France with the U.S. Army. Although he enjoyed considerable success in the United States as an author beginning in the late 1930s, Holbrook had no academic standing and seems to have been misaddressed in BR’s salutation.

• 3

  Your letter Not extant.

• 4

  I was not in Vancouver … in 1920 But BR did dock in Vancouver in August of the following year, after sailing from Japan on the Empress of Asia. He (and Dora Black) departed almost immediately by train bound for Montreal, from where they completed the rest of their journey to England by sea.

• 5

  The only time I have spoken in Vancouver was (I think) in 1929 Vancouver was among many stops on BR’s three-month North American lecture tour from September to December of that year. He spoke on education at the Vancouver Theatre on 19 October.