It’s been spring-like weather this week here in Cambridge, and I enjoyed a brief outing this weekend past, travelling eastward to the Norfolk coast. Walking with my dog along the wide, almost empty and softly windblown beach of Wells-next-the-sea was such a treat.

I came home (reluctantly) to good news: that a book I’ve contributed a chapter to, From Darwin to Cornford: The Evolution of the Poet Frances Cornford, now has a publication date. It will be published by the academic publisher, Brill, on July 16, 2026 in the UK, and you can find out more details here. (Being an academic book, the price is rather eye-watering at the moment, but fingers crossed there will be a paperback version in due course.) Other contributing authors include Frances Spalding, Janet Browne, Eugene Paykel and , and I am honoured to be in such company.

Here’s what the book’s editors, Jane Firman and Peter Mabey, say about it:

‘This study presents the first sustained account of the life and work of the poet Frances Cornford (1886–1960). Scholars from across disciplines reveal her journey, as she navigated the scientific inheritance of her grandfather Charles Darwin, the patriarchal world of the University of Cambridge, and the demands of dominant poetry movements, through times of personal loss and depression. The volume brings renewed attention to Frances’s poetry from across her career, draws on previously-unseen manuscripts and photographs, and curates her memoir. Frances became a widely-read poet, winning the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1959.’

The distinguished historian Peter Stansky, author of Julian Bell: From Bloomsbury to the Spanish Civil War (2012), has been kind enough to praise the book in advance.

‘A stellar group of highly accomplished authors has been assembled to write about Frances Cornford… This book will make her deservedly more recognised, as a wonderful poet; but it also provides important insights into English intellectual and literary “aristocracy”, through the study of her life as a Darwin, as a close friend of Rupert Brooke and the Neo-Pagan circle, and as Francis Cornford's wife. It is also an important personal story, sadly because of her periods of deep depression, more positively as she moves from atheism to deep religiosity.’

‘No omnibus heart’

I’m honoured to have contributed a biographical chapter about Frances Cornford’s mother to the book. My chapter is called ‘“No omnibus heart”: Ellen Wordsworth Darwin (1856-1903)’ and it will throw light, I hope, on Ellen Wordsworth Darwin as a hard-working Cambridge lecturer of English literature, as well as a witty friend and warm and loving mother to Frances and her step-brother Bernard.

The threads that connected Frances and Ellen were many, including their shared love of poetry, their remarkable creative focus and the quirky verbal humour that they both enjoyed, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it was Ellen’s influence that helped to make Frances Cornford the remarkable poet she became. I’ve previously written about Ellen’s friendship with the poet Amy Levy here, and my post about Frances Cornford’s cousin Gwen Raverat, who illustrated her collection of poetry Spring Morning, first published in 1915, here.

It seems fitting, following my walk in the ‘wind-soft’ air on a Norfolk beach, to conclude with this poem by Frances Cornford. Thanks very much for reading, and I would love to hear about any poems about the sea, sailing or being by the coast that have stayed in your mind over the years.

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The Coast: Norfolk

by Frances Cornford

As on the highway’s quiet edge
He mows the grass beside the hedge,
The old man has for company
The distant, grey, salt-smelling sea,
A poppied field, a cow and calf,
The finches on the telegraph.

Across his faded back a hone,
He slowly, slowly scythes alone
In silence of the wind-soft air,
With ladies’ bedstraw everywhere,
With whitened corn, and tarry poles,
And far-off gulls like risen souls.

Who can resist a love letter? This month’s Cambridge letter celebrates love letters in different forms, from a new exhibition in the National Archives to a letter from a young researcher in the 1920s, setting out all the reasons why she shouldn’t marry a Cambridge don. Amidst all the bad news out there, did you know that the fourth Wednesday of January every year is ‘Library Shelfie Day’? It’s a celebration that was instigated by the New York Public Library in 2014 to encourage a love of reading by asking the public to share their photographs of books, libraries and librarians. Below is a recent glimpse of my home library, or rather one small corner of it, containing some of the books I refer to most. How do you arrange your own books, and did a librarian or library inspire you when you were younger? I’d love to hear your stories!

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Lettice’s love letter to Frank

In November 1924 Lettice Cautley Baker, a 26-year-old researcher working in Cambridge University’s psychology laboratory, met a brilliant young King’s College don called Frank Ramsey, aged 21. They were both attending a meeting of the intellectual Moral Sciences club, which Lettice had been a member of since her days as a star Cambridge student herself, from 1918 to 1921 at Newnham College.

Frank was immediately smitten by Lettice’s confidence and beauty and they began a love affair which involved dangers for them both. Lettice’s landlady disapproved of lodgers having overnight guests, but it was clear that Frank risked even more. If the King’s College porters reported him for bringing a girlfriend to his college rooms, his career as a Cambridge academic would be over.

For Frank, the solution was obvious. Although they had only known each other for a short time, he and Lettice should get married without delay. This was not part of her plan, however. She enjoyed her lab work and, even more importantly, her independence; after completing her studies, she had lived in London with the younger Bloomsbury set (including Frances Marshall, on the right above). She did not want to give up her sociable freedom, and foresaw that her life as a Cambridge don’s wife was likely to be a lonely one. Frank would still be expected to have dinner in college with his male colleagues most evenings and even stay overnight there.

‘Darling, we have a long way to go, you and I, before we are out of the wood.’ she wrote to Frank. ‘Don’t imagine to yourself that marriage would settle all the difficulties. I should be even more of a strain as a wife. You would see much more of me, after all, I should want some attention. I shouldn’t all at once be happy to let you go off to your old men every evening, or sleep in College most of the time!’

It’s clear from this letter that Lettice’s knowledge of the latest findings in psychology informed her thinking.

‘My emotions make me want to bind myself… to you at once with (ridiculous!) oaths and promises of everlasting fidelity & love. It suggests perfect bliss but my reason says this would be a cowardly & madly foolish course.’1

Reader, Lettice did marry Frank the following year. They had two daughters and were very happy for the few years they had together before Frank fell ill and died, far too young, at the age of just 26 in January 1930.

You can find out more about Lettice Ramsey and her pioneering work as as a photographer in the 1930s in my two posts below.

More love letters from history

If you’re near London in the next couple of months, do drop into this wide-ranging exhibition of love letters at The National Archives. I’ve enjoyed reading about the correspondence between John Cairncross, the alleged Cambridge spy, and Gloria Barraclough, the woman he loved. She married someone else in the end, and her son Tom Brass spoke to the Guardian about discovering this unexpected aspect of his mother’s life.

Love Letters at The National Archives in Kew, London runs from 14 January -12 April 2026.

Books and films this month

• One of my favourite books from last year, Tiffany Watt Smith’s Bad Friend: On Joyous, Imperfect Love comes out in Faber paperback on February 26th. It’s a fascinating history of women’s friendships from the 17th century up to 1990s rom-coms, and it’s illuminated by the author’s personal experiences of disappointments in friendship. ‘This book is an unusual sort of love letter to friendship,’ Watt Smith writes in her introduction. ‘I have read too much about friendship’s wonders and mysteries, and these have left me feeling alienated and inadequate. I want to hear about imperfect, ordinary friends.’

• I was delighted that my January ‘Cambridge Letter’ featured in Vanderlyle’s newsletter recently as ‘an excellently bookish newsletter from cambridge’s ann kennedy smith for twelfth night.’ It’s one of the best link-filled newsletters out there, and you don’t have to be a local (or a foodie) to enjoy it. You can sign up for free here, just in time for their February post.

• There are some tempting new films based on love stories coming to cinemas this month. The latest film version of Wuthering Heights is out on February 13 here in the UK, just in time for Valentine’s Day and sure to attract a LOT of attention. It might be a good time to re-read the novel or even – if you prefer true stories, and avoiding crowded cinemas – Juliet Barker’s The Brontës, a meticulously researched and thoroughly engrossing group biography of the family, first published in 1994 and yet to be bettered.

• I haven’t yet seen the film version of an even more unusual love story, H is for Hawk, but hoping to go very soon. It stars Claire Foy as the Cambridge academic Helen MacDonald, whose 2014 memoir described how she learned to train a goshawk as a way of coping with her grief following the death of her father. From what I hear, it’s very good indeed.

• The brilliant independent publisher Renard Press has just released this lovely set of nine paperback volumes of Jane Austen’s juvenilia (more details here). Isn’t this, below, a great start to a love story?

Two bookish Substacks and an award-winning documentary

• If you haven’t yet discovered ’s Substack, you are in for a treat. ‘Fictional Therapy is an advice column’, she writes. ‘Readers write in with their problems - romantic drama, work drama, family drama - and I use comparisons from classic literature to help guide them toward a solution. It’s an agony aunt column for book nerds!’ Highly recommended for knowledgeable literary and life insights.

• I positively adore the image below, from . It’s a new Substack that sounds like the beginning of a great adventure: ‘Ex-London literary agent Jonathan sets up a writing retreat in a 400-year-old barn in North Wales with his author wife, Emma. He learns how to catch sheep, repoint walls with lime mortar and feed a houseful of writers, while building a dream library.’ Emma and Jonathan’s Little Goat Barn writing retreats will be opening later this year; meanwhile you can follow their adventures here.

  

• And finally, do watch the gripping recent documentary The Librarians if you get the chance. How admirable those school librarians are, standing up to bullying by those who want to introduce widespread censorship of books in some American states. The film is available free to watch on the BBC website here.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this ‘love letter’ post, please ‘like’ ❤️ or restack/share it so that other readers can find it.

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Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society is a reader-supported publication, so if you are able to, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your financial support makes a big difference to my being able to do this work, and helps to keep independent publishing alive. My post below features Lettice Ramsey’s photographs of a newly married Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

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Hello, and a warm welcome (on this first day of winter snow) to the first Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society newsletter of 2026. I hope you enjoyed the festive period, I had a delightful holiday with family in Scotland and JUST missed the proper snowfall there. A New Year means new projects… so here it is, the first of my mini-series about stuff going on, good books and exhibitions, unmissable Substacks and other nice things coming up. If you’ve been reading this Substack for a while, A Cambridge Letter might seem quite similar to my previous ‘Cambridge Notebook’ series, but I was inspired to adopt a new title by discovering a delightful 1956 ‘Cambridge Letter’ this week written by a young American student called Sylvia Plath (read on for more). With the new year I like the idea exploring new things and seeing what comes up every month, in happy historical and cultural combinations, in 2026. What are you looking forward to this year? I’d love to hear! Thank you so much for reading, and I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

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Twelfth Night and Nollaig na mBan

Traditionally, Twelfth Night begins as the sun sets on January 5 and ends with the celebration of Epiphany on January 6. Do you have traditions associated with this day? gives us a beguiling glimpse into the sometimes raucous celebrating that went on in the English Regency world. Food and dancing always featured, Caroline Knight writes,

‘but what made Twelfth Night truly delightful was the tradition of role-playing that turned social order delightfully upside down. Guests drew slips of paper from a hat to determine which character they would play for the entire evening—characters like “Sir Gregory Goose,” “Sir Tumbelly Clumsy,” “Miss Fanny Fanciful” …Jane Austen herself participated in this game “with more than a little spirit” at one gathering, drawing the character of Mrs. Candour—a woman who took people aside and told them exactly what she thought of them. One can only imagine Jane’s wit and sharp observations delivered in character!’

asks ‘Was this not love, indeed? in his elegant essay on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. has an impressive guest list for her ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ series on writers’ advice, here. And in ‘The Play that Goes Wrong – Shakespeare-style’ gives us a glimpse of the riotous scenes around the first production of Shakespeare’s Comedy Of Errors at Gray’s Inn, London in 1594.

In Ireland, the Feast of the Epiphany is also known traditionally as Nollaig na mBan, the ‘women’s Christmas’, when traditionally men take over the household chores, and women have the day off to socialize together. The Irish food writer conjures up the festive atmosphere in his recent post here.

‘One of the most consistent features of Women’s Christmas in oral memory is movement. Women leave the house. They go to neighbours, sisters, cousins, pubs, parish halls. The social energy of food and drink flows outward, into the countryside and the city. In some rural areas, small gatherings were organised deliberately so that no one woman had to host. In towns, women went out together. The food followed that looseness. It did not require preparation. It did not anchor anyone to the stove, at least not on that day.’

Waking up to a vision of snow falling lightly over Cambridge this morning, I was naturally reminded of James Joyce’s story ‘The Dead’ which takes place on 6th January, 1904. There’s a full-length (1.5 hours) reading of it on BBC Radio 3 here. Highly recommended, and explores the meaning of ‘epiphany’ in a secular light.

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.

Before the Christmas lights come down, takes us on a photographic tour of modern-day Listowel in North Kerry. And on the subject of tours, I wrote about the Irish author Samuel Beckett taking his mother May Beckett on a driving holiday inspired by their shared love of English literature here. Oh, to have been a passenger in that little hire car (apart from when it was struggling up Devon’s hills).

Sylvia Plath’s Cambridge Letter, May 1956

I loved the spirited letter that Plath wrote for the Oxford student magazine Isis in May 1956 (not long after she’d met Ted Hughes at a party) as a second-year student at Newnham College, Cambridge. In her article she gives a humorous view of the downsides of living in this English university town (‘Guess Where It’s Heaven to be a Girl!’) and took as her subject of female students being out-numbered by males, ten to one. Far from this being an advantage, she points out that it leads to women having to choose between too many parties and ‘dates’, or becoming ‘one of those bluestockinged Cambridge women who brood in the University Library until closing time’.

Perhaps a restoration of the old French salon, with each Cambridge girl presiding like Madame Récamier over her ratio of ten men, would enrich male/female relationships. More likely, co-educational public schools would make intelligent sharing of ideas easier, less self-conscious from an earlier age. At least co-ed university activities such as political clubs, newspaper work, and acting, make it possible for men and women to meet on a sounder basis than the superficial sherry party where a girl is just that, and, alas, not much more.

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2026 exhibitions and other ‘going out’ things

• If, like me, you can’t resist an exhibition about authors’ working methods, ‘John le Carré: Tradecraft’ at the Bodleian Library in Oxford promises to be a treat. It includes notes taken during his time as a student at Lincoln College there, to drafts penned in his final weeks. ‘This exhibition offers unique insights into the working methods of the writer who shaped the modern spy novel,’ the exhibition’s curators write. ‘‘Tradecraft’ is a word le Carré used to describe the techniques of espionage, but it might also be applied to his own skilled craft as a writer and social commentator.’

• A new statue of Sylvia Townsend Warner is now sitting comfortably on a bench in Dorchester’s main shopping street. As Nicola Beauman points out in her monthly ‘Persephone Books’ newsletter, there’s some irony about Denise Dutton’s sculpture of a great writer being placed outside a shop ‘selling fripperies’. I agree. Perhaps, given time, there’ll be a new bookshop there instead, as surely befits the tumbling pile of books (plus beloved cat) at Sylvia’s feet. (I wrote about her best-known novel Lolly Willowes here, with a sketch of this statue when it was still a work in progress.)

• It’s good news that Persephone Books are considering reissuing another edition of Reuben Sachs, the 1888 novel by Amy Levy which attracted so much controversy in her short lifetime. Cambridge University Library has recently acquired the personal archive of this under-appreciated novelist, poet and essayist (Amy Levy has been described as ‘the Jewish Jane Austen’). As a result of more biographers, scholars and researchers having access to this new material, it’s likely that Levy’s work will be become much better known, as it deserves to be. I wrote about her time as a Cambridge student and friendship with her tutor Ellen Wordsworth Darwin below.

• This year in the UK there will be a record number of art exhibitions placing the work of women artists in the spotlight. The Observer’s art critic Laura Cumming writes that ‘the woman who has waited longest for due acclaim remains the Scottish artist Joan Eardley (1921-63), a landscape painter of stirring genius and one of the most original artists of the 20th century.’ If you have read the incomparable ’s post ‘Claimed by the sea’ about Eardley’s painting in Catterline, north-east Scotland, you will get an idea of why her art deserves to be better known.

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  That’s it for this week! If you enjoyed this post, it would be lovely if you could give it a ‘like’ and share it with others. Coming soon, more about Elizabeth Taylor’s At Mrs Lippincote’s… and I’d love to hear more about your own reading and ‘going out’ plans for this year.

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