"Dear Ines, Dear Janet" is a unique correspondence between two women-one British and one American-from totally different backgrounds who became friends and wrote to each other over a period of 50 years.

Janet Bookman was born to an immigrant Jewish family from Eastern Europe. Her father spoke mainly Yiddish, and her mother had little formal education. Janet grew up in the Bronx borough of New York City, found her way to Washington, married a news man and raised two children.

Her friend, Ines Burrows, came from the British upper class, descended from founders of "The Times of London,"...