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Typed letter from Kate O’Brien, End Farm to Anne O’Mara. Kate mentions the surrender of France to Germany [on 14 June] and the evacuees who have arrived in North Leigh. She is very busy with work, but all sorts of things are going wrong as they are bound to do during war. She claims that Italy’s entry into the war has cost her a dead loss of twenty guineas. She expects Clare to have been evacuated from London by now. Both of them are engrossed in the events of the war.

Typed letter from Kate O’Brien, 39 Steele’s Road, [London] NW3 to Anne O’Mara. Kate seeks financial assistance from Anne towards the rental of a flat in London at £400 per year. Heinemann may send her to Russia in April and she is working hard at her novel [Constancy], which she wants to finish before she leaves.

First sheet of a typed letter from Kate O’Brien, Silver Vale Hotel, Enniskerry, [county Wicklow] to Anne O’Mara. Kate describes the hotel and her living quarters and conveys mainly domestic and family news. Also the lower half of a typed sheet, which may be the concluding part of this letter.

Typed letter from Kate O’Brien, Harcourt Cottage, North Leigh, Witney, Oxon to Anne O’Mara. Kate thanks Anne for her present of cosmetics. She is upset, having had her thank-you letter to Aunt Fan returned from the censor’s office with a printed admonition. She is pleased to hear glowing reports of Clare’s holiday in Ireland and is looking forward to meeting her the following weekend. She thanks Anne for relating to her Dr Browne’s praise of her book. She asks for family news.

Typed letter from Kate O’Brien, 10 Buckingham Street, London WC2 to Anne O’Mara. Kate’s play has had a mixed reception from the press, but the audience seem to like it. Unfortunately, the appearance of the flying bomb [pilotless aircraft] in London has doomed ticket sales. However, it has made Kate some money and there have been cautious enquiries about film rights. She plans to retreat to the country to attend to her neglected novel [That Lady]. She mentions her new friends Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, who know her novels practically by heart and are full of theatrical plots. She is angered by Ivor Brown’s comments about life in Ireland, having herself for many years tried to propagate civilised Irish life in her novels.

Typed letter from Kate O’Brien, 34 Beaufort Gardens, [Brompton Road, London] SW1 [sic] to Anne O’Mara. Kate is pleased to relate that That Lady is the Book Society’s choice for May, which means an extra printing of some 16,000 copies, some extra money for Kate and a very good advertisement for the book. She is having a busy time with movie people circling in and has been invited to supper with Carol Brandt, the chief story buyer of Metro-Goldwyn.

Typed letter from Kate O’Brien, [177 The Street], Boughton, [Faversham, Kent] to Anne O’Mara. Kate discusses her work prospects in some detail and in a positive vein. She is sorry to see the obituary notices of five friends in The Times in the last ten days. She is working on two books, but finds them hard to write and acknowledges that they are very old-fashioned.

Typed letter from Kate O’Brien to Anne O’Mara. Kate encloses a letter from Aunt Fan (now not present). She regrets not having written, but she is alarmed at her slow progress with the new book [The Last of Summer], for which Heinemann are clamouring. She would have expected them to be merciful after the success of The Land of Spices, but they keep on bullying her. She is grateful for the lovely weather, which somehow makes the war news easier to take.

Typed letter from Kate O’Brien, Harcourt Cottage, North Leigh, Witney, Oxon to Anne O’Mara. Kate thanks Anne for her cheque. She is sorry to hear of K[athleen] O’Riordan’s death. She discusses Maura Laverty and her new book, Never No More, which she recently reviewed for the Spectator.

Typed letter from Kate O’Brien, Croyle, Cullompton, Devon to Anne O’Mara. Kate discusses books, including Never No More by Mary Laverty, A Farm on Lough Gur by Lady Carbery and Black Lamb and Grey Falcon [by Rebecca West]. She is working on her new book, which is set in the Castleconnell area in the summer of 1939. She is thinking of calling it ‘The Last of Summer’ and asks Anne’s opinion on the title. When she has finished writing it, she intends to finish the Spanish novel about Ana de Mendoza [That Lady]. She deems it a good story, but difficult to write. Kate is considering the prospect of staying on in Devon as a paying guest to the Dashwoods, partly because Elizabeth sets such a shining example as an industrious and methodical author for her to emulate.