Just Send Me Word
June 2nd, 2012
Just Send Me Word
By Orlando Figes
Allen Lane, 333pp, ££20
Anyone who has ever written a history book will feel a twinge of envy on reading the preface to Just Send Me Word:
We opened up the largest of the trunks. I had never seen anything like it: several thousand letters tightly stacked in bundles tied with string and rubber bands, notebooks, diaries, documents and photographs…
It was a unique family archive, the property of Svetlana and Lev Mishchenko, and it contained, among other things, packets of their love letters. Read on »