Love Letters

by Peter Washington

Here are 200 irresistible love letters from over the centuries, love letters both historic and fictional, love letters by poets and by princes, love letters enchanting, tragic, comic, superbly selected, beautifully printed, conveniently portable, to have with you wherever and whenever you're in the mood for love.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Romance, Anthologies, Love, Unfinished, Essays

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Anna P (whatIreallyRead) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a lovely read!

Love Letters is an anthology of real letters written by classical writers and important historical figures - Robert & Elizabeth Browning, Franz Kafka, King Henry VIII, Mozart, John Keats, Napoleon, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, Emily Dickinson, Balzac, Pushkin, Musset, etc.

The letters were written from 1690 to 1960's , they are divided into "chapters" according to themes: Invitation, Flirtation, Intoxication, Adoration, Separation, Instruction, Reflection, Confession, About Letters, Warning, Parting.

As you might guess, it's not all lovey-dovey, it is obvious that there are complicated stories behind those letters - infidelity, divorce, disease, childbirth, society's opinions, unrequited feelings, love triangles, appearances, war, grief as well as honor, honesty, loyalty and affection.

Some of the authors I didn't know, or knew the names but didn't realize they were ever in a relationship. So a lot of the times I looked them up on Wikipedia and found out the context around the letter, brief biographies of the author and the receiver. And it was such an enriching experience! So many lives neatly packed into a nice little book.

I was surprised at how unconventional some of these relationships were! I sort of think of all the historical figures as prim and proper, but turns out, even in the XIX century there were a lot of ways a relationship could go.

Absolutely recommend!

[sophie esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is so beautiful and ultimately comforting to remember how far and deep through time the pleasures and pains of passion extend. Love is eternal, even if we meander between whom or what we ascribe it to. Our love inspires and is inspired by an explosion of humanity -- of ecstasy, emptiness, happiness, suffering, contentment, boredom -- and that is what makes it -- and maybe us? -- immortal.

I want to love first, and live incidentally ~ Zelda Sayre to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1919)

We'll set the night ablaze! I'll be your desire, and you'll be mine, and we'll gorge ourselves on each other to see whether we can be satiated. Never! No, never! Your heart is an inexhaustible spring, you let me drink deep, it floods me, penetrates me, I drown. ~ Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet (1846)

I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. ~ Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf (1927)

And there is no wonder seeing that I myself have become so entirely your 'creation.' All my possessions and even thought are somehow a loan or gift from you. ~ Alban Berg to Helene Nahowski (1909)

How vein it seems to write when one knows how to feel. ~ Emily Dickinson to Susan Gilbert (1852)

Osia, what a joy it was living together like children -- all our squabbles and arguments, the games we played, and our love. Now I do not even look at the sky. If I see a cloud, who can I show it to? ~ Nadia Mandelstam to Osip Mandelstam (1938)

I thought it would be easier for me than you, that I should be seeing so many different things & people that I should not be all the time longing for you. Well I was wrong. I need you all the time -- when I'm vexed and uncertain & tired -- but more than ever on a night like this when everything is unearthly & lovely. ~ Evelyn Waugh to Laura Herbert (1936)

You are all about me -- I seem to breathe you -- hear you -- feel you in and of me ~ Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Murry (1917)

Once a day I have to write to you; otherwise I would rather drop everything, otherwise I wouldn't know what to do with myself -- and it wouldn't bring you any nearer ~ Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer (1912)

The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you against the unpromising morning of my Life. My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again -- my Life seems to stop there -- I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving [...] My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you. ~ John Keats to Fanny Brawne (1819)

And don't be ashamed of your nature. It's so dear, so very dear to me. You are laughter 'mixed' from tears. It is that nature -- I understand it quite a lot already -- which is almost chronically sensitive. You are difficult to understand. What surrounds you is hard -- and, Kamilka, heartless. It's better to avoid hard stones than fall among them. ~ Leoš Janáček to Kamila Stosslova (1928)

I wanted to tell you that your new attitude towards me ... -- in a word, an avoidance of intimacy -- has touched on something within me which did not exist before I knew you, which you have moulded, and which has grown into the habit of no longer living autonomously, stretching the horizons of its existence until they reached the boundaries of another being ~ Marcel Proust to Antoine Bibesco (1904)

and if you can't come into the room without my feeling all over me a ripple flame, & if, wherever you touch me, a heart beats under your touch, & if, when you hold me, & I don't speak, it's because all the words in me seem to have become throbbing pulses, & all my thoughts are a great golden bluer -- what should I be afraid of your smiling at me, when I can turn the beads & calico back into such beauty? ~ Edith Wharton to W. Morton Fullerton (1908)

Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella Stella what is there left to say? ~ Bernard Shaw to Stella Campbell (1913)

I collected this book from a little library a couple years ago, and the title page is ripped out, where I suspect a past lover had written a letter of their own.

[Pia · Rating 3 out of 5]

nunca debí de leer este libro, ahora siento que no me voy a poder enamorar nunca a menos que me escriban cartas de amor diario.

vean esto pls que me muero:
“Dearest May,
Thank you very much indeed for the peaches. They were delicious. Eating one was almost as nice as kissing you: of course not quite: I think, if I had to give the exact measurement, I should say 'three-quarters as nice.”

!!!!!!

espero algún día me digan que mis besos son casi igual de ricos que unos duraznos

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh to receive a letter in which your lover bares their soul to you… we need to bring back love letters!

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars!

While reading this collection I couldn't help but feel a bit naughty, in the sense that I intruding on something so personal and intimate. It was fascinating to read all of these letters; one way or another they all pertained to love but each one could elicit a different reaction or emotion from me. I would giggle, sigh, and even tear up with sadness while reading. There is such a strange and mysterious intimacy from exchanging letters. It mixes the emotional (the thoughts and sentiments) and the physical (actually writing it down). All in all this is both a fun yet stirring collection.

Here are some I would like to give a shoutout. I wish I could give more but honestly just read this entire collection:
All of Zelda to Scott
John Keats to Fanny
Nadia Mandelstam to Osip Mandelstam (22 October 1938)
Dora Carrington to Lytton Strachey (14 May 1921)
Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Murry (18 May 1917)
George Farquhar to Anne Oldfield (1699?)

[ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

centuries of yearning, obsession, desperation, and reminiscing, from luminaries, royalty, and beloved writers, collected through the rawest form of communication: letters

if i were to pare down my collection of books to ten, this would be one of them. this is a book one returns to constantly, and forever; this is a book about the one universal thing all human beings live for


"... I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way."

- Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf


"I have lost track of you. I do not know where you are. Will you hear me? Do you know how much I love you? I could never tell you how much I love you. I cannot tell you even now. I speak only to you, only to you...
It's me: Nadia. Where are you?"

- Nadia Mandelstam to Osip Mandelstam

[Sarah Dunmire · Rating 4 out of 5]

The categories/chapter headings of each section didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I suppose it’s difficult to categorize love letters into themes but it was an odd organization. There were a lot of repeat authors on letters, and I would have liked more variety in eras written as well as country of origin.

[Shelby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is difficult to rate because naturally, some of the letters were better than others. There was some gorgeous ones, but there were also a few that definitely should’ve been left out😭Overall though, I enjoyed this.

I’m also obsessed with the way this collection was structured as different stages/facets of relationships; from “flirtation” all the way to “separation.”

[Cara M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soo good

[inkinreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful compilation of letters so full of love that they read like poems.

[Lilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

mood: “you are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart.” - franz kafka

[Alena Xuan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is exactly what you think it is: a book of love letters with no context.
Honestly the best ones were the Fitzgeralds (no surprise) and it was lacking Ulysses S. Grant (a shock, to be sure).

[Emily]

from c <3

[Sanjana · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often 'to reason against the reasons of my Love'. I can do that no more - the pain would be too great. My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.
Yours for ever."
John Keats to Fanny Brand, 1819.


"Most Divine -
It is some proof of my sincerity towards you, that I write when I am prepared by drinking to speak the truth; and sure a letter after twelve at night must abound with that noble ingredient."
Alexander Pope to Martha Blount.

".....all these are very small advantages compared with the awfulness of my character. I have always tried to be nice to you and you may have got it into your head that I am nice really, but that is all rot. It is only to you & for you. I am jealous & impatient - but there is no point in going into a whole list of my vices. You are a critical girl and I've no doubt that you know them all and a great many I don't know myself..."

[Leah Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an well-edited, very sweet little book which includes--you guessed it--lots of love letters. They are not, however, love letters of the Hallmark variety, but instead clever, passionate missives from noted literary, artistic and historical figures. There is a memorably profane and flirtatious love note from Mozart to his wife; a sumptuous and elegant letter from Katherine Mansfied to John Middleton Murray; an enjoyably milquetoast yet clearly heartfelt letter from Napoleon to the Empress Josephine; and a very poignant one from Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West. There are many other excellent sources ranging from George Bernard Shaw to Anais Nin, and they are all entertaining for their historic, emotional, and aesthetic content. For a list of all of the sourced letters, visit [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/18571...].

[Nday Nday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, every night.. I read some affectionate sometimes desperate love letters from those who lived in the past.. From Oscar Wilde to Virginia Woolf and Mozart.. This is a little sweet book to read so far.. And just a little proof how people were so good in words back then.. and how I wish I could receive them.. the confession, the affection, desperation, warning and other complex emotion of a human being in words.. words.. oh.. words..

[Mark Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m collecting this series and have been reading my way through them slowly. This one is a collection of some 200 or so love letters from historical figures like Queen Victoria, Lord Byron and Katherine Mansfield. Some are wonderful, some funny, some tragic and some quite disturbing to a modern mind.

[Keri Murcray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this as a Christmas gift from my cousin and I loved it! Wonderful love letters from lots of people that were so interesting to read - some were funny, some were naughty, some were sad, some were so lovely and some resonated with me so much. Definitely plan to re-read this one some day.

[Caroline]

some of these letters are four hundred years old... and they prove we were just as delightfully weird back then as we are now.

[Jacqueline Cocklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it!!!

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed reading these, as it shows a insightful glimpse of the world's of some of the biggest names in literature. Although I was not interested in some, most were really beautiful and definitely an interesting read. Would recommend.