Allingham

Scrolling through the things related to C.S. Lewis that I have posted on this site, I came across this (shortened and slightly modified):

From the diaries of W.H. Lewis (C.S. Lewis's older brother):

This afternoon I got a Margery Allingham Omnibus from the library, with a foreword by her husband Youngman Carter from which I learnt with regret that the poor woman died of "a sudden and devouring cancer" on June 30, 1966. Pax cineribus. She'll be a great loss in the field of 'teccie [detective] writers. Why, I wonder, does the 'teccie provide a medium for so many women writers, most of them too at the top of the field in this genre—Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, Josephine Tey, Patricia Wentworth—and all of them outstanding. (Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis, 6 May 1969)

Somewhere (I no longer remember where) I read that Margery Allingham was a friend of C.S. Lewis and his wife, Helen Davidman. I have been an Allingham reader since I was a teenager. A friend returned from the wilds of northern Minnesota with a Penguin edition of one of Allingham's Albert Campion books which he lent me after which I read them all and acquired most of them. It is very pleasant to discover that an author you enjoy was known to one you admire.