Letter to Meredith

A belated epistle and tribute

Henri François Riesener

I have a bad track record when it comes to writing fan letters to authors. Granted, my opportunities have been few, since so few of my favorite authors are living authors—but I’m two for two at failures in this department, which isn’t exactly a good percentage. I once contemplated writing a fan letter to Mary Stewart, but before I actually worked up to the point I heard in 2014 that she had passed away. And for a long time the thought hovered in my mind that I really should write some word of appreciation to Meredith Allady—author of the most remarkable independently-published historical fiction I’ve ever read—but by the time this conviction became definite, her simple WordPress website had not been visibly updated in six years.

“Meredith Allady” was certainly a pseudonym, given that the author herself rendered it in quotation marks in the introductions to her books (and given their Regency England setting, I suspect a play on words in the choice of surname); and her online presence had always been low-key and gently anonymous, in a way that few authors manage nowadays, before going silent altogether. There was never any indication of who the person behind the pseudonym was in everyday life, so I had no way of finding and writing to her privately.

But somehow I couldn’t leave it like that. The Merriweather Chronicles had reached my heart in a way that only rare and special books do, and I had to try and pay my tribute, even if I suspected it might never reach its destination. I wrote my letter, and sent it to the public email address still posted on the inactive website. I never heard back.

A year and half later, I’ve decided to share what I wrote here as an open letter. It’s a better tribute to the Merriweather Chronicles than I could write in a conventional book review—and perhaps there’s still a slim chance that, if anyone who does know “Meredith Allady” should ever stumble across it, the words might find their way to their intended destination after all.

And next time I won’t wait so long to write that fan letter.

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Dear Meredith,

This is an extremely belated letter. I have been contemplating writing it for several years, and regret that I did not do it sooner. At this point I have no way of knowing whether this address will find you; but as I approach the final pages of Letters to Julia for the—how many times have I read it? I am not quite sure—I realize that I must at least make the attempt to let you know how much I appreciate your books, and the impact they have had on my life.

To begin with general praise. The Merriweather Chronicles are the only Regency novels I have ever encountered that in any way deserve the comparison “like Jane Austen.” They fall into the category of books that one picks up again every few years and re-reads slowly, savoring their depths and delights all over again—a category usually reserved for books, such as Miss Austen’s, that have been considered “classics” for many years. Whenever I read them I marvel afresh at the author’s command of the English language, knowledge of English literature and history, and ability to capture the “voice” and viewpoint of a past era without striking a false note. It is a rare thing to find any novel where the characters’ Christian faith is presented so sincerely and naturally—unprecedentedly rare to encounter a historical novel that successfully name-drops figures like Henry Venn, Charles Simeon, Henry Martyn, and John Owen (not to mention Matthew Henry!), and presents figures like Wilberforce, Cowper, and Newton in their proper context. Owing to your intriguing preface to the series, I have never been quite sure whether to regard you, or an ancestor whose manuscripts you have edited, or a combination of both, as the author (I have, indeed, even experienced a few moments of slight unreality, usually prompted by the matter-of-fact editorial notes in Letters to Julia, where I wondered if I could possibly be reading the papers of a real nineteenth-century family)—but whoever, in the singular or plural, is responsible for the Merriweather Chronicles has my deepest respect.

While I have a great fondness for Friendship and Folly, as well as both Bath incidents, it is Letters to Julia that I regard as the finest book in the series, and which has come to rank among the all-time handful of novels closest to my heart. In its preface you stated ruefully your opinion that Kitty might be a difficult heroine for readers to like, and while I can definitely see how most might be wildly impatient with her (as we certainly all were for a while at the climax of Friendship and Folly), at the precise moment in my life that I first picked up Letters to Julia I found myself—to my own amazement—identifying with Kitty in a way I had not thought possible. At that time, I was slowly climbing out of a deep struggle with anxiety, panic attacks, and irrational fears, and reading Kitty’s struggles—in many ways different from, and yet so like my own—and the manifold Scriptural truths flowing through the book’s pages, was a perfectly timed blessing and comfort to me. Like Kitty, I still have space to grow, but I can with certainty look back and say that by the grace of God I am a much stronger person today than I was then, and for part of that I owe your dear book a debt of gratitude. To me Letters to Julia is resounding proof that the Holy Spirit can use other good books besides the divinely-inspired Book to guide and comfort us (a reflection that is also comforting to me, as an author myself, when I am assailed by periodic doubts about the ultimate value of my own modest offerings to Literature).

And so, very simply, thank you.

Needless to say, the appearance of any further Chronicles would fill me with joy. I have never quite given up hoping: every once in a while I type “Meredith Allady” into the search bar on Amazon, and half-hope for a few seconds as the page is loading that a new title may appear beside the old ones. I do not know the reasons for the silence from Merriweather over the last few years—if it is merely the time required for the production of a new masterpiece, I have absolutely no complaints to make. But if any part of the reason is doubt over whether these books find a meaningful audience, I can assure you that there is at least one reader to whom they mean a great deal (and I do know several others who would be happy as well).

Thank you again, and God bless you.

Sincerely,

Elisabeth Grace Foley

P.S. – I should tell you that I have formed my own opinion on whom Ann should marry, if she marries; and while I would not presume to dictate to the author on that point, among the many reasons I would like to see further books is to find out whether I have guessed right, or whether I have as little perspicacity as Miss Northcott herself displays on occasion. I would also be interested to find out whether another small surmise, not related to Ann, which I formed near the end of A Summer in Bath, has any foundation.

P.P.S. – I wrote this letter by hand before transferring it to the rather more impersonal medium of email—after weeks immersed in the Parrys’ correspondence, no other method of composition would have felt quite right. I would have liked to be able to send it to you in its original form.

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