The World's Great Letters

by M. Lincoln Schuster

Letters make the most interesting reading, especially other people's. This anthology is the product of many years of intensive research and collecting on the part of the editor. Each letter is prefaced with a biographical prelude and a summary of the historic background behind the correspondence. Among the over 120 letters herein, read as Alexander the Great announces to Darius, King of Persia, that he alone has dominion over the earth; Beethoven writes to his Immortal Beloved; Michelangelo negotiates with the Pope over the Sistine Chapel; Christopher Columbus reports his first impressions of America to the Court of Spain; Dostoyevsky describes his sensations in the minutes before he was to be executed; Thomas Mann writing in 1937 hurls his defiance against Hitler and the Nazi regime. Here then are love letters, taunting letters, shocking letters, letters dipped in honeyed phrases, letters written with words of gall, bombastic letters, letters breathing fire, letters with good news, letters that spelled disaster, passionate letters, secret letters, casual letters, gushing letters, impulsive letters, grandiloquent letters, crafty letters, short letters, voluminous letters, letters of courage, letters of hatred, letters of adoration, letters of fury, letters that people forgot to burn, letters that people did not dare to send, letters that glorified literature, thundering letters, tender letters, inspired letters, diabolical letters, letters that made history.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Reference, Classics, Anthologies

563 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

M. Lincoln "Max" Schuster co-founded the Simon & Schuster publishing house with Richard L. Simon—father of singer-songwriter Carly Simon—in 1924. He built a reputation as "one of trade publishing's most creative and unconventional editors" during his 42 year career there.

Reviews

[°•.Melina°•. · Rating 5 out of 5]

《شور انگیز ترین عشق‌نامه‌های جهان: از ناپلئون تا بتهوون》
نشر کتاب پارسه/ ۱۹۲ صفحه(گلچین)

خیلی جذاب بود. شگفت‌انگیزه جوریکه دستنوشته‌های آدمهای بزرگ از ۹۰۰ سال پیش تا همین ۲۰۰ سال پیش تو این کتاب جمع شده؛ چطور انسانها انگار همشون "یک‌جور اما به صد‌جور" اول و آخر عشق رو تجربه میکنه، رنج میکشن، از دست میدن و به هر حال جاودان میمونن. میتونم تا ابد به خوندن ژانر" نامه‌ها" ادامه بدم خیلی میراث جذاب و مهمیه. خدا میدونه از ما چی میمونهدچون مسلما گوشی‌ها تا ابد نمیتونن در دسترس بمونن.

🔖اردیبهشت ۱۴۰۴

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read this year. Every person who has a love for history should read it.

[Clausell Stokes · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far my favorite book! What strikes me most is how letters from these eras, no matter the period, represent compact, carefully crafted communications sent with only the hope of reaching their destination, and the even rarer hope of receiving a reply. Whether intentionally written for posterity or truly private moments, these letters reveal wit, humor, vulnerability, ambition, and motivation as their authors took the time to convey their full feelings or objectives, tailoring their messages to their specific audience. These letters are truly windows into their souls and into the past, written before the age of text messages, phone calls, and emails compressed time, distance, and genuineness. This book does an excellent job of giving us the context and background to understand these figures even more deeply.

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

The World’s Great Letters is an anthology, a collection of letters meant to show other sides to famous people. The book was first published in 1940, so it is a bit dated, but I didn’t read this expecting to find famous emails or anything like that.

The book is organized chronologically, starting out with letters that have somehow survived millennia, and going on to more recent letters. In this book, we find letters from Alexander the Great and Darius III, letters from Abraham Lincoln, letters to and from Baruch Spinoza, and so on. The table of contents also has an organization of the letters by subject, which makes the book really good if you don’t feel like going and reading it cover-to-cover.

The book contains a framework for each letter that gives biographical and historical information. So for the letters between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia, it explains who each of them was and why they were writing to each other. Now if you play Civilization or other games, these names might be familiar to you, but not everyone plays turn-based strategy games. The same goes for Baruch Spinoza’s letters; a former pupil wrote to Spinoza after he converted to Roman Catholicism.

So this book was very well done considering what it is. It is not difficult to realize the gist of it.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Loved it!! My Favorite Letters Were from Alexander the Great to Darius talking about how he has Dominion over the world. It was an Amazing Read