LETTER 1 and 2
Usually a novel begins by an incipit = a passage from the world of reality to the world of fiction , a
threshold to make the reader enter the fictional world progressively. It starts a “dialogue” between
the writer and the reader, a sort of “reading contract” is established. It usually introduces the
characters, the setting (place and period) and it announces the main themes to be found in the novel.
The types of narrative and focalization are made clear to the reader as well as the general tone.
Here , it is an epistolary novel and there is no proper incipit. We start the story “in media res” : no
introduction, but a first letter by someone we have never heard about ,the first word mentions
another character we absolutely don’t know as if she was familiar to us, there is a reference to “the
book” in the first line as if we knew which book the character is talking about … the reader quickly
understands he has to be active in order to reconstruct the plot , guess who those people are,
understand their past … He also has the impression of entering someone’s intimacy by reading his
private correspondence and it also generates a reality effect.
Yet the first and second letters give us the necessary clues needed to introduce the plot
I-CHARACTERS, SETTING AND TIME REFERENCES
1- TIME REFERENCES

The first letter was sent on January 8th 1946, and the second one is the answer written
two days later, on January 10th. So the answer was almost immediate .

The Second World War ended in Europe on May 8th 1945. So the novel starts just after
the war.
It was a difficult period for the population : “ration coupons” for food, no butter, real eggs
were a feat, there was a food shortage.

It was also difficult psychologically “these days” and the war was still present in people’s
minds

“during the war it wasn’t a mean feat to make people laugh or at least chuckle” (hard
period)
2-THE SENDERS AND THE ADDRESSEES
A- JULIET

-name : Juliet Ashton

job : a writer

facts about her career :
- penname : Izzy Bickerstaff: reference to Jonathan Swift (an early 18th century
satirist) who chose the penname of Isaac Bickerstaff to predict in a letter the death of a
famous astrologer (= a hoax!)
- 2 books already published :

a “serious one :“Ann Brontë’ s biography” = “a debacle”

A humorous one in a journalistic tone : “light-hearted journalist” “Izzy
Bickerstaff goes to war”, which she is promoting right now and “the sales figures are excellent

she is now working on a third book ; “English Foibles” She is unlikely to write it,
as she sounds unconvinced
places
- she lives in London, in “Chelsea” (address) = a special atmosphere, a place for artists
(equivalent to Greenwich Village in NYC): painters lived there (Turner, Whisler, Rosseti), famous
writers too (Oscar Wilde, George Eliot…)
- she is going to tour the country “next week” (letter 2) from “Bath to Yorkshire” (with a

possible extension in Scotland?)

personality traits
Funny (sense of humour)
Learned (literary references)
Sociable
Enthusiastic and positive
an extravert who can even be ...impulsive (episode of a book thrown at the audience when she was
younger)
B- SIDNEY

name : Sidney Stark

job : a publisher

facts about his career :
He has a partner “Stephens and Stark”
He is Juliet’s publisher

place
he lives in London, in “St James’s place” (address) = a rich neighbourhood, not far from
Buckingham Palace and St James Palace : he must be quite wealthy if he can afford having
his office there.

personality traits
He also has a sense of humour (you write charming little notes)
He is quite reassuring and encouraging “I have no doubt about your success”
he seems to be open-minded
C - RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SIDNEY AND JULIET

He is Juliet’s publisher , so their relationship is both personal and professional

They have known each other for a long time (at least 18 years – cf letter 2 “eighteen years
ago”)

So both must be in their thirties at least ; As he sounds protective to her, he may be older
than Juliet.

the form of address they use to each other is informal (dear + first name, “love” at the
end) :we can feel friendly relationships between them, even complicity

They seem to trust each other : he teases her , she admits frankly her present difficulties
about the new book and he doesn’t try to exert pressure on her about the new book : “don’t
fret about English Foibles”

We don’t know whether he is more than a friend for Juliet? Maybe…
3- THE OTHER CHARACTERS MENTIONED

*SUSAN SCOTT
She works for Sidney and promotes Juliet’s book : she is a sort of manager. She organizes
“literary luncheons”, finds whatever is necessary to organize events (food …)
She will “usher Juliet through bookshops from Bath to Yorkshire”
She also has to report to Sidney “she said you took to the audience”
She has mostly professional relationships with Sidney and Juliet (although they seem to get on
well)
Personality traits : active, efficient, resourceful and friendly

SOPHIE (we don’t know her family name yet)
She is probably Sidney’s younger sister “my most infuriating older brother manner”
And she is Juliet’s friend “she misses you terribly”
Both characters have personal relationships with her (nothing professional , unlike Susan)
She lives in Scotland and she is caring and friendly to Juliet.
II-THE TONE = HUMOUR
1- The tone of both letters is humorous

Choice of vocabulary : one of the definitions of humour focuses on the
“discrepancy between matter and manner” ,
Ex : “to achieve these heights” when talking of basic food+ tendancy to exaggeration in the choice of
adjectives (“thrilling”, “lavish”)
“grim news” just because she doesn’t feel like writing the book she intended to write

Unexpected juxtaposition of words : ridiculous names and slogans
“Protest against the glorification of the English Bunny”
“ Vermin exterminators trade unions”

Unexpected comparisons
Ex : (letter 2) “you took to the audience like a drunkard to rum”

Funny situations that we visualize
Ex : “I hope Jane spat on her” … in the context of a literary circle ! discrepancy between the setting
and the scene she imagines
“the Shepherd boy singing in the valley of humiliation” (Bunyan’s poem, a very austere puritan poem
by the author of the Pilgrim’s progress 1678) … and what followed : “throwing the book at the
audience”
“a photograph of the Vermin exterminators’ trade union marching down on Oxford street with
placards screaming “down with Beatrix Potter”” … because she wrote books for children and her main
character was a rabbit “Peter Rabbit”

Double meaning : puns
Some words can be read differently according to the context (ex : “debacle” when we read
this word , we also think of WWII) other ex : “thrilling” (for the food) reminds us of the literary
genre (thrillers)
2- Humour is the expression of a way of considering life

Both Juliet and Sidney are able to laugh at themselves and their defects
They are not too serious about themselves : they laugh about their own defects (self-derision)
Ex : Sidney in letter 2 “in my most infuriating older brother manner “That Remains To Be Seen” (the
capital letters imply a falsely authoritative and official tone)
Ex in letter 1 Juliet who seems to be more interested in the food than in the sales of her book :
“much more thrilling from my standpoint was the food”

Humour is a means of taking the heat out of a situation (to play down the importance
of something ; Ex : “don’t fret about …bunnies” in letter 2
in letter 1 :“it relieves my conscience over the debacle of my Ann Brontë’s biography”

Humour is a sign of friendship
Sidney teases Juliet because he likes her “you write charming little notes” “a hint.. you should refrain
from throwing the book at the audience”
Juliet also teases Sidney about money : “you may deduce the money from my royalties”

Humour as a therapy :
During the war it was “no mean feat to make readers laugh” and offer them an alter,native to horror
and a possibility to hold on to life.
But humour requires “to dredge up a sense of proportion and balance : one can’t write humour without
them”
III- A CENTRAL CONCERN : BOOKS
It is the main topic of the correspondence

Both characters’ jobs are related to books : writing , publishing, selling books
Juliet is a book writer and a book lover and also a journalist
Sidney is a publisher and a book lover too.

-
It is a means of earning money
concern for economical problems “we sold 40 copies”, “ I’m very happy that Stephens and
Stark is making money”, reference to the “sales figures”, “commercial possibilities”
-
An author has to promote his/her book , touring the country, literary luncheons, ..

An author meeting her readers :
Juliet is going to tour the country in order to meet her readers in a process of mutual seduction :
“you took to the audience… and they to you” “you will have your listeners coiled around your little
finger”
Metaphor of food and drink : you share a meal (luncheon), you also share the content of a book + a
reader is attracted to an author like ” a drunkard to rum”

An author has to be enthusiastic about his/her subject, otherwise he can’t write
“I no longer want to write about this book” with an echo in letter 2 : “ I agree that the topic would
soon grow horribly fey… occur to you”.
So it is not that obvious to find the right topic that will make a good book “”English foibles seemed
promising at first “ … but “ what is there to write after a caption? Nothing, that’s what” … and we
know that Mary Ann Shaffer had started writing several books and had given them up (the Guernsey
Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is her first book).

Juliet wants to write a book that suits her personality
She no longer wants to hide under a penname “I don’t want to write anything under that name . I don’t
want to be considered a light-hearted journalist any more”. There has been a change of mood and of
priorities in her life , now that the war is over. She refuses to go on hiding under a false identity. She
is undergoing a quest for her true self… but it is difficult” .She insists on the fact that her style in
“Izzy Bickerstaff… ” belongs to the past (opposition between “is” and “was” line 18 + “I don’t want”
repeated , as well as words like “no longer” “not any more”.

Books as a therapy
Books offer an alternative to reality that can make people laugh, even in the worst moments of a war.

A “mise en abyme”
We have a hint at “how to write books” : two ingredients are necessary : “proportion and balance”.
Besides we see the difficulties of an author trying to find the subject of her next book
A writer, mary Ann Shaffer , the author, writes about a character, Juliet, who is a writer herself.
And this writer writes letters in which she speaks of other famous writers …. who were also famous
for writing and publishing letters !
Beatrix Potter 1866-1943, the author of Peter Rabbit
Ann Brontë 1820-1844, one of the Brontë sisters (letters 1847-48)
Anna Dorothea Benson Montagu , Mrs Basil Montagu 1773-1856 wrote letters to Jane Carlyle 18011866 , the wife of the essayist Thomas Carlyle and their correspondence was published (the Carlyle
letters)
… and finally Juliet in her letter mentions a letter written by Mrs Montagu to her rival in which she
tells Jane that her letters are “charming little notes”, a qualifier that Sidney humorously applies to
Juliet herself !!!!
CONCLUSION
Although there is no introduction to this epistolary novel, the first two letters give us the
main guidelines and the necessary indications about the main characters , the setting and the period.
The tone is set for the novel and we guess humour will be an important ingredient. But books
and literature are likely to be one of the major themes, and the context is that of the post war
period, with memories of the war still present in the characters’ lives. As it is an epistolary novel,
there is no narrator but different voices , each of them giving a subjective account of his experience.
The reader will have to be active in deciphering the clues to reconstruct the plot and fiction is
closely intertwined with reality, as real characters and anecdotes are mixed with fictional ones.