In mourning
In the 19th century, it was customary to use black-bordered paper and envelopes to inform someone of a death. Here...
As cold as …
A letter from Keats to his beloved Fanny, with a kindly injunction to wrap up warmly. I loved the solicitude...
Plus ça change…
There’s something reassuring in seeing that what appears an ‘issue’ today appeared equally so to people long ago. It puts...
Up hill and down dale
Gavin Maxwell chose to live in a remote house on a remote island in Scotland. Here he describes the extraordinary...
The pleasure of paper post
One of the greatest pleasures of Christmas, for me anyhow, is the sending and receiving of cards, one of the...
Waiting for the post
Dorothy Wordsworth's journals were written in the closing years of the 18th century and the opening years of the 19th,...
The innovation of envelopes
They’re so ubiquitous that it’s a surprise to learn envelopes were a mid-nineteenth century invention. Somewhere in Gaskell I remember...
Close to your heart
I've heard of people keeping letters, including under their pillow, but never one permanently about your person. This letter from...
High fashion, slow post
One of the features of postal correspondence is its slowness, probably a key contributor to its slow demise, though perhaps...
Straight as an avenue of poplars
When was the last time you received - or wrote - an 18 page letter? I think I have managed...
No post and plenty of censorship
We don't know how lucky we are, having access to many forms of communication, electronic or postal, and being free...
Signs of civilization
I liked Durrell's simple assessment of two building blocks of a recovering civilization after the ravages of war: a functioning...
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