What A Hazard A Letter Is

by Caroline Atkins

Why would anyone write a letter and then not send it? What a Hazard a Letter is, wrote the poet Emily Dickinson, thinking of the Hearts it has scuttled and sunk . Once sent, a letter cannot be taken back: it is like a depth charge dropped into the future, into other people s lives. The moment they re written, letters become, as Janet Malcolm puts it, fossils of feeling : they fix and freeze the sentiments we had at the time, though our lives may quickly move on and we may all too soon have second thoughts. But what if, once written, a letter is not sent or never arrives? What a Hazard a Letter is is the first book to look at the strange phenomenon of the unsent letter. It collects together some of the most remarkable examples, from fiction and from real life, and explores the fascinating reasons why they came to be unsent, and the consequences sometimes farcical, sometimes agonisingly poignant, and sometimes actually changing the course of history. Here, then, are authors from Ian McEwan to Iris Murdoch, Abraham Lincoln to Ernest Hemingway, and Virginia Woolf to Van Gogh: magnificent tirades written in the red mist of rage, delicious to read but all the better for not being mailed; letters whose non-arrival sets a novel s plot careering down a new track; and tender words of love that never quite got said all, in their way, a little more eloquent for being unsent.

Genres: Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

Published September 13, 2018

Reviews

[Amanda Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of the letters particularly moved and haunted me. This book also brought many other books into my life i.e. my reading list is now twice as long!

[Marsh "Bad Sci Fi" Bloom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice little diversion of a book but I disliked that a lot of the letters were fictional. Waxing on about what various authors thought a letter was and how it impacted lives felt way too navel-gazey. It made the book incoherent since it couldn't pull off a higher level "this is what the letter means to human society" sort of theme. So instead it treated fictional letters as though they were almost real and mixed them in with the real ones (some of which were very entertaining and almost made the book worth it by themselves.) But there should have been two books here: Letters and the impact they have had in history and personal lives and Letters and how they are used in fiction.

[Natalie Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this so interesting to read. I've really been into letters recently so thought this was so fun and right up my alley. What a great find!