Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: marriage proposals in the style of famous writers

‘The Betrothal of Robert Burns and Highland Mary’, 1882, by James Archer. Credit: (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) 
issue 30 March 2024

In Competition No. 3342 you were invited to submit a proposal of marriage in the style of a famous writer.

The overall standard was high, and entries that impressed and amused include Bob Trewin’s Hemingway, Dorothy Pope’s Larkin and Nicholas Lee’s Conan Doyle. Janine Beacham’s Masefield’s also shone:

I must go down on one knee again, if you’ll wed
      me on the fly,

And all I ask is an office do, with no friends or
      family by…

The most prizeworthy are printed below and earn £25 each.

Because thou hast not nam’d the Day
Such Task doth fall – to Me
Am I too late? – I...

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