The Wainwright Letters

Product Description

Alfred Wainwright, the legendary fell walker & author of the incomparable & unique Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells was also a fluent, eloquent & diligent correspondent. Writing to old friends & to the many new ones gained through his books, & to his love, & later second wife, Betty, his letters display a much warmer, more sensitive & emotional character than his gruff popular image would suggest. Hunter Davies, Wainwright's biographer, has here collected a selection of letters that range from his early years in Blackburn to his established position as Borough Treasurer in Kendal, & cover all aspects of his professional & personal life, as well as the voluminous correspondence that was a consequence of writing & publishing the Pictorial Guides. The latter vividly illuminate many aspects of that turbulent but ultimately triumphant process, while the former present a picture of a dedicated public servant whose personal life had been deeply unhappy until late in life he found unexpected but transcendent love & happiness. In turn business-like & comic, wonderfully well informed & remarkably innocent, deeply moving & yet tough-minded, the letters present a vivid & unforgettable picture of one of the great but eccentric creative geniuses of the twentieth century.