The Letters of Magdalen Montague

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By Eleanor Bourg Nicholson

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When the amoral and cynical “J” takes up his pen to describe Magdalen Montague, he little realizes the dramatic changes that will soon be wrought in his life. His fascination for this mysterious woman catapults him into a harrowing encounter with Catholicism, conversion, and discipleship. Through the letters, intimate portraits of four souls appear: the loquacious letter-writer “J,” his virulently antireligious recipient, “R,” the weird, silent servant Domokos Juhász, and Magdalen Montague herself. Across the turbulence of the first four decades of the twentieth century, including two world wars, the mysterious correspondents in The Letters of Magdalen Montague present a profound portrait of humanity’s quest for God.

Praise for The Letters of Magdalen Montague

“Eleanor Nicholson has written an old-fashioned epistolary novel of religious awakening and vocation. Set in the heady intellectual and hedonistic milieu of Edwardian England, it mixes elements of Waugh, Wilde, Bernardos, and even a touch of Francis Thompson to create an intimate account of one skeptic’s decisive encounter with the Hound of Heaven. In this short book, Nicholson recaptures the energy of a great Catholic literary tradition.”
— Dana Gioia, poet and former Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts

“Magdalen Montague exhales the same exuberant and exotic air as Baudelaire, Huysmans and Wilde; a delicious vignette that illumines the path from debauchery to the Divine.”
— Joseph Pearce, author of The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde