Letters are a tactile written communication traversing centuries and continents, bringing other people, places and times to life with immediacy and personality. Here we celebrate this ancient form of exchange. Send me a handwritten postcard, will you?
Letters burned (I)
It always saddens me to learn of letters burned or destroyed; including those we will never see because Jane Austen's sister destroyed them after Jane's death. Here Edmund de Waal tells us of what may have been an epistolic treasure trove burned by his...
Most reprehensible
This charming exchange is from a favourite children's book, discovered and devoured when already a so-called grown up.I liked the child owning up in guilt to a shameful act, and the adult's sneaky response. Let it be said that Ambrose is a dream uncle who educates...
Postcards from the future
Enjoy this charming project which invited children aged 5-12 to design and write postcards from the future, addressed to parents, or a friend, or simply to '2022'. The gallery of drawings this generated have some common themes, along with the personal messages. I...
Write and gripe
I like letter writers who gripe about the responses (or lack of) from correspondents. Pliny is the arch whinger when he doesn't think his friends have written him fast, frequent or long enough letters. But I liked Bernstein's keeping tally - a 7-pager deserves at...
What is a letter? A tactile written communication that bridges distance and lasts forever.
Letters better late than never
The war-time life-line of letters is summed up here. Their erratic arrival in a region of Italy where the battle front moved back and forth like a changeable weather front,...
The scrutiny that precedes reading
Yes, there is that small ceremony that precedes the reading of a letter, particularly a hand-written one delivered by post. You look at the envelope, the stamps, the hand-writing (familiar...
The merry mind
The actress Ingrid Bergman had a short relationship with the photographer Robert Capa. I love this quotation from a letter he sent her, with its idea of a ‘merry mind’. I...
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 a character protesting at this new-fangled costly creation. Previously people...
Signs of civilization
I liked Durrell's simple assessment of two building blocks of a recovering civilization after the ravages of war: a functioning post office and a few working street lamps.
See also...
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 of censorship. Here Stefan Zweig describes the conditions in which...
Letters unwritten
When a friend mentioned the special paper she’d bought to write me a letter, which she hadn’t yet done, I started thinking about unwritten letters, the ones we plan or...
The Magic Ink-Pot
Always on the hunt for treasures among forgotten children's books, I came across this one by chance when I was rather looking at glorious buildings and libraries stashed around the...
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 few genres of paper post that still seem to hold...
Unintended consequences
A small restaurant in Maine sought to limit the number of reservations by requiring people to send theirs by post. They ended up with more than they could handle, by...
Letters burned (I)
It always saddens me to learn of letters burned or destroyed; including those we will never see because Jane Austen's sister destroyed them after Jane's death. Here Edmund de Waal...
Letters and the lapse of time
A moving comment on the effects of time and separation, and the hiatus of news caused by war. Firstly, the sorrow and regret of discovering the death of a loved...
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