Best Collections Of Literary Letters 2008
"Words In Air"
Let's say that the history of correspondence as literature began with Cicero, proceeded to the mash notes of Abelard and Heloise, and took on new dimensions with such epistolary novels as Pamela, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Dracula. High points of recent decades include the The Groucho Letters (where Mr. Marx waggles a virtual cigar at the likes of T.S. Eliot and Harry S. Truman) and last year's Letters of Noel Coward, which went to print bearing two letters faked by a charismatic felon whose memoir appears on this list.
Dear reader, sitting down with a collection of letters — or a vivid reflection on them — affords a singularly intimate encounter with a writer, so please give a look to these exercises in mail bonding.
9(MDAyNzUwMDI2MDEyNTA3MTU5NzcyNTQyNA004))
The Timewaster Letters, by Robin Cooper, paperback, 192 pages, Chicago Review Press. List price: $11.95
Cooper — the nom de farce of British comedy writer Robert Popper — operates in the tradition of such epistolary jesters as Henry Root and Ted L. Nancy, launching daft missives at innocent civilians, reprinting the exchanges for connoisseurs of silliness. The voice, honed over five years of pranking, is doggedly earnest and puppyishly eager, straight-faced and fool-headed. Consulting the Archbishop of Canterbury on a doctrinal matter, Cooper wonders, "As a religious man could you perhaps give me a few tips as to the best way to set up an entirely new world religion?" The responses range in tone from polite bafflement to hot outrage to gracious sympathy, and the best timewasters make a leap from practical joke to philosophical inquiry. On Dec. 15, 1999, Cooper mailed a succinct doozy to a therapist from London's Society for Existential Analysis: "Dear Mr. Spinelli, Why did I choose to write this letter? Yours sincerely...."
The Printable List
Complete Holiday Book Recommendations 2008
