Strahan, Alec to Julia Briggs, 1989-05-14

"Dear Mrs. Briggs, I have just finished reading A Woman of Passion and feel I must write to tell you how enormously I enjoyed it. I found myself spellbound by the whole book, but in particular by the way you traced the interweaving of Edith's family with her fictional characters. And it fascinated me also for another reason: my friendship with John Bland and his wife Maude, who befriended me in Cairo during the war and who were a great influence in my life. Our friendship lasted till each of them died, John in 1947 (?) and Maude in 1963 or 64..."