Look Back with Astonishment [WITH) Look Back with Gratitude.

Presentation copies inscribed by the author on front free endpapers 'For John, with grateful memories of 'Dear Octopus', and my love to you. From Dodie 1979' in the first title and; 'Fro John with love from Dodeis 1985.'



Gielgud and Dodie Smith were neighbours in 1934 when Gielgud bought Foulslough, a mill at Finchingfield, Dodie Smith and her husband, Alec Beesley, were having work done on a new house, 'The Barretts', in the next field. They became good friends and in 1938 'Dodie was now plotting with a cool deliberation, 'Dear Octopus', her most famous play, and the only one still performed nearly sixty years later'.... While writing it, she and Alec went to see Gielgud (and Gwen) in 'The Three Sister', and Gielgud told them, backstage, that he had 'such difficulty in finding plays for himself apart from the classics...' Dodie decided she must have Gielgud for her new play.

[Dear 'The Life of Dodie Smith' by Valerie Grove. Chatto & Windus. 1966]