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This is a triangular letter. During World War II, Russian soldiers folded their letters home in a way that required no envelope -it’s actually quite easy. And it was also easy for censors to open and read them before sending them on. Families back home were excited to see this shape arrive in the mail. Read about the letters and the men who wrote them at Poemas del río Wang. Link -via Metafilter
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Is the art of the love letter dead, or just dying? If more people knew about the great love letters of the past, maybe a few would take the trouble to put pen to paper and create something that the recipient will keep as a treasure. President Woodrow Wilson wrote beautiful love letters to his wife Ellen Louise Axeson, and after her death wrote to Edith Bolling Galt, who married him in 1915.
While wooing Edith, Wilson penned a series of love letters, some signed “Tiger” (Wilson was a Princeton alum, but this was before the university took on the tiger as its mascot.) In one, Wilson wrote, “You are more wonderful and lovely in my eyes than you ever were before; and my pride and joy and gratitude that you should love me with such a perfect love are beyond all expression, except in some great poem which I cannot write.” In another, he pines, “Please go to ride with us this evening, precious little girl, so that I can whisper something in your ear—something of my happiness and love, and accept this, in the meantime, as a piece out of my very heart, which is all yours but cannot be sent as I wish to send it by letter.”
You’ll find more examples of great love letters at mental_floss. Link
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A few people were lucky enough to be pan pals of a sort with Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh often added sketches or paintings to his letters, to illustrate what he wrote about. BibliOdyssey has a collection of these letter sketches, along with the letters that accompanied them. Link
Shaun Usher of deputy dog has a new blog called Letters of Note which shares classic correspondence of all kinds. One that stands out is from a slave named Vilet Lester to a member of her former owner’s family, written in 1857. Here is an excerpt.
I am well and this is Injoying good hlth and has ever Since I Left Randolph. whend I left Randolf I went to Rockingham and Stad there five weaks and then I left there and went to Richmon virgina to be Sold and I Stade there three days and was bought by a man by the name of Groover and braught to Georgia and he kept me about Nine months and he being a trader Sold me to a man by the name of Rimes and he Sold me to a man by the name of Lester and he has owned me four years and Says that he will keep me til death Siperates us without Some of my old north Caroliner friends wants to buy me again. my Dear Mistress I cannot tell my fealings nor how bad I wish to See youand old Boss and Mss Rahol and Mother. I do not now which I want to See the worst Miss Rahol or mother I have thaugh that I wanted to See mother but never befour did I no what it was to want to See a parent and could not.
The post contains a transcript of the entire letter and a photograph of the handwriting. Link
