21 February (1949): Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell
After meeting at a New York dinner party, Elizabeth Bishop, who had just won the Houghton Mifflin Poetry Prize Fellowship, and Robert Lowell, fresh off...
20 February (1893): Anton Chekhov to A.S. Suvorin
In the letter below, Anton Chekhov writes to A.S. Suvorin, offering his thoughts on several of Ivan Turgenev’s works. Although Chekhov was impressed by “Fathers...
19 February (1851): Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville had a profound, near-devotional admiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne, viewing him as the finest novelist of his day, a craftsman far superior to Melville...
18 February (1899): Oscar Wilde to Robert Ross
In the letter below, Oscar Wilde writes to friend, mentor, and alleged lover Robert Baldwin Ross. After Wilde’s imprisonment, Ross went abroad for safety,...
14 February (1797): Charles Lamb to Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I can scarce bring myself to believe that I am admitted to a familiar correspondence, and all the licence of friendship, with a man who...
13 February (1947): Søren Kierkegaard to Julie Thomsen
In this letter, a characteristically reclusive Søren Kierkegaard writes to Julie Thomsen, his cousin, about his tumultuous relationship with writing and his enslaving inability to leave...
12 February (1966): William Empson to Arthur Efron
In this letter, renowned critic William Empson expounds upon the latent themes of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. TO ARTHUR EFRON Paunch [literary journal]Feb. 1966‘Wuthering Heights—II’...
11 February (1922): Rainer Maria Rilke to Lou Andreas-Salomé
"Think! I have been allowed to survive up to this. Through everything. Miracle. Grace.—All in a few days. It was a hurricane, as at...
8 February (1921): Katherine Mansfield to Constance Garnett
Katherine Mansfield writes effusively to Constance Garnett, one of the most important translators of Russian fiction in Mansfield’s time. To Constance Garnett [Villa Isola BellaGaravan]...
7 February (1958): Kenneth Tynan to the Editor of the Tribune
In the letter below, English theatre critic Kenneth Tynan writes to the Tribune regarding “the unique moral splendor” of nuclear annihilation, and insists that the...
6 February (1926): Aldous Huxley to Julian Huxley
In a letter to his brother, evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley, Aldous Huxley recounts the political climate during his travels in South Asia with his wife,...
5 February (1925): Thomas Mann to Josef Ponten
In the letter below, Thomas Mann rejects the notion that The Magic Mountain is hostile to life, instead arguing that he has attempted “to make...
4 February (1923): Wallace Stevens to Elsie Stevens
"The lamp-lighter with his long pole is lighting the lamps on the Prado. A man on horse-back has just gone by dressed in white. The...
1 February (1864): Matthew Arnold to Richard Cobden
Poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold was deeply involved with contemporary social issues, widely respected as “a man of the world entirely free from worldliness”(G.W.E....
31 January (1850): Christina Rossetti to William Michael Rossetti
Christina Rossetti was an English poet best known for her romantic, devotional, and children’s poems. Under the pen-name “Ellen Alleyne,” Rossetti contributed to the short-lived...
30 January (1938): Cesare Pavese to Enso Monferini
Cesare Pavese’s life often mirrored that of his protagonists: lonely and solitary. To Enso Monferini, Ancona Turin [January 1938] Dear Enso, I have often meant...
29 January (1950): Christopher Morley to The Sunday Times
In 1934, writer and editor Christopher Morley founded The Baker Street Irregulars, a group that was once considered the preeminent Sherlockian group in the United...
28 January (1852): Charles Baudelaire to Marie Daubrun
By the early 1850s, Charles Baudelaire was struggling with poor health and serious debt, and his literary output suffered because of it. However, this unrestrained...
25 January (1920): Eugene O'Neill to Agnes Boulton O'Neill
Agnes Boulton and Eugene O’Neill were married from 1918 to 1929. In the 1910s, Boulton was a successful pulp fiction writer, and in 1958—almost thirty...
24 January (1965): Truman Capote to Perry Smith
During research for his non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote and Perry Smith, one of the murderers, developed an intimate friendship. In this letter,...
23 January (1949): Ayn Rand to Robert Spencer Carr
Ayn Rand responds, defensively and antagonistically, to a letter from novelist Robert Spencer Carr by defining “altruism” in terms of two of Spencer Carr’s characters...
22 January (1884): Oscar Wilde to Waldo Story
Oscar Wilde married Constance Lloyd on May 29, 1884. Below, Wilde outlines the outset of their engagement to Waldo Story...
21 January (1958): George Eliot to John Blackwood
After receiving a letter from Charles Dickens that both praised her work and hinted at her true identity (which we published here last week), George...
18 January (1858): Charles Dickens to George Eliot
Charles Dickens, upon reading George Eliot’s first published work Scenes of Clerical Life, wrote Eliot a letter expressing his profound admiration for the work, as...
