BR TO EDITH RUSSELL, [18 NOV. 1950]
BRACERS 20239. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #504
Edited by A.G. Bone and N. Griffin. Reviewed by S. Turcon

Washington. Sat.1

Dearest Edith2

I was very sorry to have no spare time to see you again — I was taken possession of forcibly. You must try to come to England. It was a very delightful evening that I spent with you3 and I should like many repetitions. Now 321 letters have to be written. Goodbye with very much love.

B

• 1

  [document] The letter was edited from a photocopy of the signed original written in BR’s hand on a single leaf.

• 2

  [recipient] The woman who became BR’s fourth wife, Edith Finch (1900–1978), was a close friend of his longtime correspondent and confidant Lucy Donnelly, who had introduced them (in England) as far back as 1925. BR and Edith had met periodically ever since, and they renewed this acquaintance in October 1950 when he was lecturing at Mount Holyoke College. They saw each other again a few weeks later in New York (see n. 3 below), to where Edith had moved from Bryn Mawr after Donnelly’s death in 1948. Romance blossomed after she quickly acted on BR’s invitation to visit him in London. Not only was he starting the most successful (and least complicated) loving relationship of his life, but he also acquired a dedicated secretary and amanuensis into the bargain. A published biographer (of Bryn Mawr college president Carey Thomas and American poet American poet Wilfred Scawen Blunt), Edith lived life with BR with an eye to posterity, and she performed an invaluable service in this regard by carefully preserving his archives over the next twenty years.

• 3

  It was a very delightful evening that I spent with you On 14 November 1950, after BR spoke at Columbia University, giving the first of his three Matchette Foundation Lectures on “The Impact of Science on Society”.