14 January (1958): Allen Ginsberg to Louis Ginsberg and Family
New Year’s I was broke so someone drove me to Montmartre Pig Alley Pigalle & I wandered around all night & walked at midnite thru...
13 January (1849): Charlotte Bronte to William Smith Williams
Too often I feel like one crossing an abyss on a narrow plank—a glance might quite unnerve...
10 January (1896): Mark Twain to Harriet Lewis
And I wish you would tell her, also, for otherwise she will never suspect it, all my conversations with her having been strictly devoted to...
9 January (1796): Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen
...I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way...
8 January (1852): Herman Melville to Sophia Hawthorne
I had some vague idea while writing it, that the whole book was susceptible of an allegoric construction, & also that parts of it were...
7 January (1922): Frederico Garcio Lorca to Regino Sainz de la Maza
Study a lot, Regino, and comb with care the invisible strands of your heart. Be careful not to tangle them!
6 January (1951): C.S. Lewis to Ruth Pitter
One might as well read everyone who had the same job or the same coloured hair, or the same income, or the same chest measurements,...
3 January (1970): Martha Gellhorn to Alvah Bessie
If I had a fine memory (one of the basic ingredients of talent), I might be able to write Memoirs, better than George Kennan for...
2 January (1896): Willa Cather to "Push"
I dont [sic] know when I will appear in Lincoln next, nor do I much care. One of the charms of the Province is that...
1 January (1918): Ezra Pound to Harriet Monroe
Anything really made to speak or sing is bound to lose on the page, unless the readers have some sense of sound.
31 December (1847): Alfred Lord Tennyson to Edward Fitzgerald
My Book is out and I hate it and so no doubt will you.
30 December (1942): Katherine Anne Porter to Paul Porter
That is what the artist does: he sees, he is the witness, the one who remembers, and finally works out the pattern and the meaning...
27 December (1880): Emily Dickinson to Sally Jenkins
and Santa Claus himself—sweet old Gentleman, was even gallanter than usual—Visitors from the Chimney were a new dismay, but all of them brought their Hands...
26 December (1818): John Keats to George and Tom Keats
In the following letter, John Keats describes to his brothers, George and Tom, various Christmas gatherings, and his general displeasure with the company. He also...
25 December (1898): Jack London to Mabel Applegarth
And to-day is Christmas—it is at such periods that the vagabondage of my nature succumbs to a latent taste for domesticity. Away with the many...
24 December (1962): Thomas Merton to Ernesto Cardenal
There is no telling what is to become of the work I have attempted with the Protestant ministers and scholars. Evidently someone has complained to...
23 December (1916): D.H. Lawrence to Gordon Campbell
But I have no connection with the rest of people, I am only at war with them, at war with the whole body of mankind...
20 December (1893): Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas
In the following letter Oscar Wilde addresses Lord Alfred Douglas, his former lover. Later, Douglas’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury, would bring Wilde to court...
19 December (1847): Elizabeth and Robert Browning to Anna Brownell Jameson
We are as happy as two owls in a hole, two toads under a tree-stump,—or any other queer two poking creatures that are let live...
18 December (1852): Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey
My own objections arise from a sense of incongruity and uncongeniality in feelings, tastes, principles...
17 December (1967): E.B. White to Callie Angell
The way to read Thoreau is to enjoy enthusiasms, his acute perception...
16 December (1937): J.R.R. Tolkien to Stanley Unwin
Literary legend has it that British publisher Stanley Unwin paid his nephew to read J.R.R. Tolkien’s first submitted manuscript, and only took on the fantasy story...
13 December (1926): Rainer Maria Rilke to Lou Andreas Salomé
And now, Lou, I know not how many hells, you know how I made a place for pain, for physical pain, the truly great one,...
12 December (1953): P.G. Wodehouse to Nancy Spain
I’ll give you a tip which will be useful to you. Always read at least some of a book before you review it. It makes...
