Reading......The Virago Book of Love Letters

I don’t think I have ever received (or for that matter written) a real love letter. Now, before you fall to pieces feeling so sorry for me that you just can’t stand it, perhaps I should clarify. Like most school age girls, I received my share of the wildly romantic “check yes or no” notes, scrawled on wide ruled notebook paper and covertly passed when the teacher’s back was turned. But as a young woman who came of age in the digital era, written correspondence was already pretty much obsolete, which is kind of sad. I’m not at all opposed to email. In fact, my sentimental self saved all of those sweet, flirtatious emails sent from my husband early in our relationship and sometimes it’s fun to sit down and read back through them. But still, the romantic in me can’t help but wish that those same words were hand-written on ivory paper, worn thin from being held and read over and over again. Perhaps the ubiquitous tearstain smudging the ink in certain passages. Something I could tie up with a pretty ribbon and put in a chest for some great-great granddaughter to discover in a dusty attic years from now. Ah well…..



At least I can live vicariously through Jill Dawson’s book. The Virago Book of Love Letters is a delightful collection of love letters written by women from the thirteenth century to the present. I’ve been reading it for some time now, just a letter here and there. An eclectic mix of sweetness and scandal, it’s quite a lovely book. Some passages made me cry, some made me blush, but all were beautifully written and utterly captivating.

Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII

Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir

Oddly enough, I couldn’t help but feel the occasional twinge of guilt. By their very nature, love letters are meant to be private, so reading them is almost akin to reading someone’s diary. Most of the writers in this collection have been dead for a long time, but I still can’t help but wonder how they would feel, knowing that those precious secret words were now shared with so many.

William Butler Yeats and Maud Gonne

Ultimately, my voyeurism won out over my respect for individual privacy (as it usually does, if I’m being honest about it). Some of my favorites are pictured here: Simon de Beauvoir to Jean Paul Sartre, Maude Gonne to W.B. Yeats, Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII, George Sand to Lord Byron, Mileva Maric to Albert Einstein, and so many others!

Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein