Dear Theophilus,

It is long since I have written to you, for which I beg your forgiveness, and much has happened. I was furnished by the astounding generosity of my 3.6 Loyal Readers, plus benefactors I had not known of, with the funds to get a proper set of book covers done for the Orchard; only I have no book to wrap them round, for I have been ill and stymied. Ill, not only with my usual maladies, but with a recurrent flu, which may be the same germ that turned into pneumonia when my father got it, and carried him off. (You will know, of course, through the usual channels, that he has died.) I shall speak a little of my other troubles; then, what matters more, of my efforts – and what has stymied them. [Read more…]