When Ronald Searle's wife, Monica, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer in 1969, the illustrator drew her a Mrs. Mole drawing "to cheer every dreaded chemotherapy session and evoke the blissful future ahead." Monica survived the then-experimental treatment, and died just last summer. Ronald died in January.
Now a collection of 47 Mrs. Mole drawings has been released as a book, Les Tres Riches Heures de Mrs Mole.
Said Ronald Searle:
"I drew them originally for no one's eyes except Mo's, so she would look at them propped up against her bedside lamp and think: 'When I'm better, everything will be beautiful.' ... Everything about them had to be romantic and perfect."