Keats’ correspondence
Here are Keats' own aspirations for his letter-writing. Whether he found interesting matter or just made matter interesting, his letters...
Letters unwritten
When a friend mentioned the special paper she’d bought to write me a letter, which she hadn’t yet done, I...
Keats on hand-writing
Keats' letters are treasures - he is every bit as fine a correspondent as he is a poet. Here he...
Letters kept, letters destroyed
Given the fragility of letters, it’s astounding how many have survived centuries and even millennia. Added to which it seems...
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...
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,...
As cold as …
A letter from Keats to his beloved Fanny, with a kindly injunction to wrap up warmly. I loved the solicitude...
A packet of yellow love letters
What happened to all those love letter in a private drawer, sent and kept over centuries when this was the...
High fashion, slow post
One of the features of postal correspondence is its slowness, probably a key contributor to its slow demise, though perhaps...
Key Performance Indicators … with a twist
'Here and there in the leafy glade of her letters a ripe berry of information gleams.'
When was the last...
A plea for pity – II
Keats' plea for tolerance, given we each have flaws that can be painfully exposed. See Theodore Dreiser's similar suggestion...
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