The wartime correspondence which first warmed people's hearts in Simon Garfield's To the Letter, now available in a single volume for readers to follow their wonderful and life-changing journey

AS HEARD ON RADIO 4

'Utterly wonderful' NINA STIBBE, author of Love, Nina

Twenty hours have gone since I last wrote. I have been thinking of you. I shall think of you until I post this, and until you get it. Can you feel, as you read these words, that I am thinking of you now; aglow, alive, alert at the thought that you are in the same world, and by some strange chance loving me.


In September 1943, Chris Barker was serving as a signalman in North Africa when he decided to brighten the long days of war by writing to old friends. One of these was Bessie Moore, a former work colleague. The unexpected warmth of Bessie's reply changed their lives forever. Crossing continents and years, their funny, affectionate and intensely personal letters are a remarkable portrait of a love played out against the backdrop of the Second World War. Above all, their story is a stirring example of the power of letters to transform ordinary lives.

"Utterly wonderful" - * author of LOVE, NINA *

"The modern reader is swept along in a gushing sea of yearning, lust, fear, regret and relentlessly candid emotion, and is constantly reminded of the enduring power of letters to transform ordinary lives" - * Daily Telegraph *

"An immensely affecting set of letters" - * Financial Times *

"A record - spontaneous, immediate and unassuming - of the implacable triumph of love" - * Sunday Times *

"These letters are magnificent" - * Daily Mail *

"Barker and Moore start to fall in love by letter . . . And what a sweaty, lusty love it turns out to be" - * Guardian *

"What, one longs to know, is going to happen next to Chris and Bessie? . . . The thrillingly intensive experience that they lived through will continue to resonate for as long as those sheets of paper are read" - * Literary Review *

"It's a delight, from the hesitancy of the first letters to the deep, fervent and repeated declarations of love and affection later . . . But it is the openness of the letters that leaves the lasting impression - you get a sense that writing these letters was an opportunity to communicate more freely and deeply than would have been possible elsewhere, even in the most intimate whisperings of pillow talk" - * Skinny *

"The sheer intensity of their mutual passion, set against the volatility of the war, is heady stuff indeed" - * Good Book Guide *

"Anyone who has ever got a date using Facebook or Tinder should read this and see what romance really looks like" - * Sun *