Love Letters, An Anthology
(Antonia Fraser)
A love letter is the most personal kind of letter any of us ever write. In it we reveal our innermost beings, even if subconsciously. As you read this anthology questions will occur ? Did he marry her?Was he already married? What happened next? Did she really accept the hand of someone like that? And so on. It is a book to dip into, but also to set you off following trails that you never expected to travel and asking questions that had never occurred before.
Antonia Fraser looks at love in its widest aspect so we have a letter from a son to his father, mistress to loyal servant, a king to his courtier as well as those between lovers, husbands and wives, the betrothed, man to man and their female counterparts and from one woman to the other woman.
The book reveals sides of the famous that we have probably never considered ? the letter from Queen Mary II to her husband King William III for instance - not usually considered among the world?s great lovers, as neither is Oliver Cromwell. The addresses lead us on other trails ? what was Oliver Cromwell doing in Edinburgh? Or Napoleon in Verona?
Letters from jail as from Parnell who describes the secret way that they must communicate ? letters from ordinary soldiers looking forward to home leave that they will never have. Others from those who know they will never meet again as when Sir Thomas More writes his farewell letter to his daughter.
It is a book of love letters yes, but there is so much more to learn here. A book to dip into, but also one to study at depth. The author has divided her book into sections such as declarations, passions, pleas and rejections, but says that these were dictated by the letters rather than by finding letters to fit into categories. That is perhaps why this book works so well. The letters were chosen for their own qualities rather than to fit into a prescribed pattern.
Resumos Relacionados
- Letter To Garcia
- Letter To Garcia
- Camões Letters
- Sam's Letters To Jennifer
- The Timewaster Letters
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