Best Letter Writer?

[gruntingslime]

Who in the history of literature wrote the best letters?

[keif]

Mark Twain took his letter writing seriously. He even famously made the observation that it takes time and effort to write a good, concise letter with his quote:

"I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."

There are some famous letters of courtship to his wife you might want to check out.

[mortalterror]

Not counting epistolary novels and epistolary poems like Montesquieu's Persian Letters, Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Laclos' Dangerous Liasons, or Ovid's Heroides? Also excluding novelists and poets who also wrote interesting letters, for instance Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, or Joyce's amorous letters to his wife? If you want letters from people famous for their letters, you should start with Pliny the Younger's Epistulae.

In the modern era Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné was known for her letters among the French, as was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu among the English.

[Pecksie]

Madame de Sévigné's letters are great, yes. Shelley's are interesting, as are Jane Austen's.

[mortalterror]

Petrarch wrote some cool letters to dead people. His letters to living people aren't bad either.

[mal4mac]

Seneca

[Seasider]

Virginia Woolf. In 5 volumes (I think) Its fascinating to see her skills as a writer develop from the early times to the weeks before her suicide. She can be funny, waspish, gossipy, loving and never other than absorbing.

[dfloyd]

Try reading the Jefferson-Adams letters.