Lady of Letters: Living with Sylvia Jukes Morris

Abstract

From the moment I first walked into her rented room in a townhouse in Marylebone, London, I knew I was in the presence of a lady of letters. And — unusual for that breed — a woman of elegance, too. The books on her Sheraton-style shelves, or between brass ends on her polished side table, were not only lovingly arranged, but manifestly read. I remember in particular a two-volume set of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, bound in red padded leather, the page blocks gilt-edged and divided with silk ribbon markers. Newly arrived in England from Africa, I had never before seen this greatest of biographies. It sits still in her library, one floor below me as I write.