3 October (1961): Paul Bowles to James Purdy
Below, Paul Bowles writes to James Purdy about his summer in Tangier, which was spent “with the Beat nucleus throbbing in our midst.” TO JAMES...
2 October (1944): Kenneth Patchen to Jasper Wood
Below, Kenneth Patchen offers aspiring editor/publisher Jasper Wood advice on how to run a literary journal. October 2, 1944, NYC Dear Jasper Wood: What a...
1 October (1956): Vladimir Nabokov to Jason Epstein
Below, Vladimir Nabokov writes to Jason Epstein with his notes on the proposed cover for his novel, Pnin. At the time, Epstein had just founded...
28 September (1846): Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet
Gustave Flaubert’s charged, tempestuous affair with poet Louise Colet has been portrayed as Flaubert’s one serious love affair. “It was to [Colet] that Flaubert addressed the...
27 September (1819): Percy Bysshe Shelley to Leigh Hunt
In March of 1818, threatened with debtors’ prison and the loss of custody over their children, Percy and Mary Shelley expatriated to Italy. Below, Shelley...
26 September (1753): Samuel Johnson to Samuel Richardson
Samuel Johnson regarded Samuel Richardson as “an author from whom the age has received greater favours, who has enlarged the knowledge of human nature, and...
25 September (1927): William Carlos Williams to Florence Herman Williams
In 1927, William Carlos Williams and his wife, Florence, traveled to Europe, and enrolled their sons in a Swiss boarding school. Florence stayed on in...
24 September (1917): Franz Kafka to Max Brod
After he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in August of 1917, Franz Kafka moved to the Bohemian village of Zürau, where he kept a small and...
21 September (1931): Hart Crane to William H. Wright
In 1932, Hart Crane traveled to Mexico on a Guggenheim Fellowship, intending to write a history of Mexico in verse that, ultimately, he’d barely have...
20 September (1950): James Agee to Father Flye
Father James Flye was James Agee’s lifelong friends and mentor. “In writing to Father Flye, Agee is addressing not only a priest but the embodiment...
19 September (1920): Federico García Lorca to Adriano del Valle
Below, a twenty-two-year-old Federico García Lorca writes a twenty-five-year-old Adriano del Valle, describing plans for future work. TO ADRIANO DEL VALLE September 19, 1920 My...
18 September (1951): Albert Camus to Jean Grenier
Albert Camus maintained a lifelong, intimate, and candid correspondence with French philosopher Jean Grenier. Camus had been Grenier’s student at the University of Algiers,...
17 September (1836): Ralph Waldo Emerson to Thomas Carlyle
In 1831, J.S. Mill introduced Thomas Carlyle to a young New Englander—then traveling abroad in London—by the name of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Jane Carlyle would...
14 September (1949): Evelyn Waugh to Anne Fremantle
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...
13 September (1833): Honoré de Balzac to Ewelina Hanska
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...
12 September (1865): Fyodor Dostoyevsky to M.N. Katkov
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...
11 September (1956): Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Plath
In September of 1956, a newly married Mr. & Mrs. Ted Hughes traveled to Yorkshire, where they stayed for the month with Hughes’ mother and...
10 September (1840): Nathaniel Hawthorne to Sophia Peabody
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...
7 September (1910): Leo Tolstoy to Mohandas Gandhi
TO GANDHI September 7, 1910, Kochety I received your journal, Indian Opinion, and was glad to see what it says of those who renounce all...
6 September (1955): Flannery O'Connor to Betty Hester
From 1955 until her death nine years later, Flannery O’Connor maintained a frank, wide-ranging and candid correspondence with Betty Hester, a clerk at an Atlanta-based...
5 September (1902): Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke
In the summer of 1902, Rainer Maria Rilke left his wife, Clara, and daughter, Ruth, and went to Paris, where he worked for a time...
4 September (1945): Allen Ginsberg to Lionel Trilling
Among the freshmen enrolled in Lionel Trilling’s “Great Books” course at Columbia in 1944 was a young Allen Ginsberg. The two would go on to...
3 September (1899): Anton Chekhov to Maxim Gorky
...Now for one more thing: by nature you are a lyricist and your spirit is tuned to melody. If you were a composer you would...
