Below, Evelyn Waugh responds to Anne Fremantle’s request for a blurb for Desert Calling, her biography of Charles de Foucauld. September 14, 1949, Gloucestershire Dear Anne T. Burns sent me your proofs & I read them with zest. I … Continued
In March of 1832, quite out of the blue, Polisih countess Ewelina Hańska drafted a brash, chiding (and ultimately very alluring) letter to Honoré de Balzac, signing it “L’Éstrangèr”. The letter sparked a fraught, impassioned, profoundly intimate relationship of nearly … Continued
The aesthetics and content of 90’s zines anticipated much of blog culture. The online teen magazine www.rookiemag.com looks to both media for inspiration. This past week, Drawn And Quarterly published Rookie Yearbook One, which is basically a greatest hits of … Continued
Below, a broke, struggling Dostoyevsky pitches Crime and Punishment to the editor of a literary magazine. (NB: Today, we’re cheating a bit. The letter is dated, on the basis of available evidence, not to “12 September”, but rather to … Continued
There is something rather delightful in reading about the deleterious effects of the Internet whilst one is on the Internet. The eventual metastasis of its recursive self-reference is a pleasure not to be missed. Take Carl Wilkinson’s recent article in The … Continued
In September of 1956, a newly married Mr. & Mrs. Ted Hughes traveled to Yorkshire, where they stayed for the month with Hughes’ mother and father. September 11, 1956, Yorkshire Dearest Mother, […] I never thought I could like any … Continued
The last time I used a pay phone was to respond to my beeper, which was attached to my hip and set on vibrate. It was fourteen years ago; “Quit Playing Games With My Heart” was what is now “Call … Continued
A friend and I once debated whether critics are helpful or even necessary. She ventured no, citing a New York Times book review that attacked the work of a “seasoned” writer, and basically concluded that the novelist had, in his … Continued
Although Nathaniel Hawthorne refers to Sophia Peabody as “[m]ost dear wife”, the two would not officially marry until 1842. In the letter below, Hawthorne is on leave from Brook Farm, the famous experimental utopian community in West Roxbury, MA, where … Continued
On the first day of art school, I arrived prepared. I toted my 30 pounds of required supplies into the classroom, having carefully chosen each expensive paint tube and special willow charcoal from the three-page “class requirements” list. I sat … Continued
