Letters of Note

Starred review from September 26, 2016
This follow-up to 2014’s collection offers newcomers and fans of the series another outstanding compendium of correspondence from celebrities, U.S. presidents, and ordinary citizens. Like its predecessor, each entry includes a replica of the letter in its original form next to some contextual information. The breadth of the collection is impressive; it contains both record producer Steve Albini’s 1992 letter to the members of the band Nirvana about their upcoming collaboration on the In Utero album and Abraham Lincoln’s touching 1862 letter to a young girl whose father was killed in the Civil War. The letters written by ordinary people are just as noteworthy: an educated slave’s farewell letter to his wife after he was sold in 1858 and a soldier’s firsthand account of the Christmas truce between British and German troops in 1914 are just some of the heart-wrenching inclusions. Happily, there are just as many lighthearted entries as glum ones, including a University of Sussex professor’s cheeky cover letter applying for the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching post at Hogwarts, Ayn Rand’s 1966 letter to the editor of Cat Fancy magazine, and an illustrated story Beatrix Potter sent to the five-year-old son of her friend and former governess. This fantastic collection of over 125 letters is endlessly entertaining. Color illus.

September 13, 2021
Dogs are a writer’s best friend in this charming installment in the Letters of Note series (after Letters of Note: Love). Thirty letters from a wide variety of writers span over 600 years and highlight “our ever-evolving relationship with this magnificent creature.” In 1351, poet Francesco Petrarch wrote to his friend Matteo with a praise-heavy update about Matteo’s dog, which Petrarch had adopted. Patrick Brontë, meanwhile, wrote to his daughter Charlotte in 1853 from the perspective of her dog Flossy: “Trust dogs rather than men,” he urged. E.B. White hilariously responded in 1951 to the ASPCA’s accusation that his dachshund Minnie was unlicensed (“If by ‘harboring’ you mean getting up two or three times every night to pull Minnie’s blanket up over her, I am harboring a dog all right”), Zora Neale Hurston wrote to her literary agent in 1960 detailing a piece she was working on about her dog Spot, and comedian Sue Perkins wrote to her dog Pickle after his death (“First, a confession: I had you killed”). Where the collection shines is in its ability to reveal unexpected information about the correspondents’ lives: “I have always disliked people who talk baby talk to dogs,” John Steinbeck declares. Dog lovers will savor this quirky collection.