Diana Athill’s childhood was idyllic, brought up in the Norfolk countryside. Aged only fifteen, she fell in love with a young undergraduate. They travelled to Oxford, engaged to be married. Then everything fell apart in the cruellest possible way.

In this classic modern memoir, Diana Athill dissects the terrible consequences of loss and her struggle to rebuild a personality destroyed by sadness. Yet for all its unhappiness, Instead of a Letter remains a story of hope, written with the frank intelligence and lack of self-pity that have become the hallmarks of Athill’s writing.

‘Her first and still most perfect perfect book’ - LiteraryReview

‘The reader sees the transformation of the battered soul into a buoyant woman,open-minded and open-hearted’ - Hilary Mantel