Case W5
- Fandom
Typed letter, Alan Boon to Essie Summers, 10 February 1986.
Summers contributed to Mills & Boon’s success for over 30 years. When she met Alan Boon on her first visit to London, he oversaw her touring arrangements personally and feted her stellar position on his list. By 1986, she knew romance writing had new directions, including explicit passion and changed moral values. As a result, she relinquished her contract with Mills & Boon. Here is Boon’s letter accepting her decision reluctantly, and her own, announcing the news to her readers.
Typed letter, Essie Summers to The Essie Summers Appreciation Club, 22 September 1993.
Summers maintained contact with the Essie Summers Appreciation Club in the 1990s. She told the Club when she resumed writing novels and announced a new title, South Horizon Man, published by Severn House in 1993. Her last novel appeared in 1998, the year she died. Mills and Boon produced a special newsletter to advise readers she had concluded her remarkable career.
Sample newsletters from The Essie Summers Appreciation Club (1994).
Typed letter, Essie Summers to Dear Reader, 21 February 1986.
Mills & Boon newsletter with obituary for Essie Summers (1998).
