Published in Great Britain in 2013 by

      Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

       www.canongate.tv

      This digital edition first published in 2013 by Canongate Books

      Copyright © Simon Garfield, 2013

      Design by James Alexander / Jade Design

      The moral right of the author has been asserted

      For permissions credits please see page 452

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

      ISBN 978 0 85786 858 9

      Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro

      To Justine

       A slit in the door: a novel concept in 1849.

      ‘We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverable for ourselves and for others.’

       – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

      ‘In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people’s lives.’

       – Anatole Broyard

      ‘There must be millions of people all over the world who never get any love letters . . . I could be their leader.’

       – Charlie Brown

       An early pillar box, circa 1853: ‘Not a single letter has been stolen’.

      Contents

       1 The Magic of Letters

      In which we learn, in a roundabout way, how not to catch a bullet in your teeth, and ponder the value of letters in an age of email.

       2 From Vindolanda, Greetings

      In which inhabitants of a garrison town beneath Hadrian’s Wall communicate with the present, and we find that even in ancient Rome it was important to plump up the cushions for visitors.

       3 The Consolations of Cicero, Seneca and Pliny the Younger

      In which we get a proper education.

       Letters from Abroad

       4 Love in Its Earliest Forms

      In which Marcus Aurelius falls for his teacher, twelfth-century lovers meet their comeuppance, and Petrarch complains about the crappy postal service.

       How to Build a Pyramid

       5 How to Write the Perfect Letter, Part 1

      In which we learn to address a pope at the start of his popedom, and observe an English satirist roast a jilted lover.

       Trying to Impress

       6 Neither Snow nor Rain nor the Flatness of Norfolk

      In which the Pastons welcome us into their delightful Norwich borders home, Henry VIII falls in love again, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet their fate.

       Your New Lover

       7 How to Write the Perfect Letter, Part 2

      In which Madame de Sévigné and Lord Chesterfield become accidental heroes, and The Ladies Complete Letter-Writer tells us how to ask a friend for a summer in the country.

       Entirely Gone

       8 Letters for Sale

      In which letters become valuable slithers of history, Napoleon and Nelson do battle in the auction room, and a British soldier in India has a challenging time with the locals.

       Let Us Mention Marriage

       9 Why Jane Austen’s Letters Are so Dull (and Other Postal Problems Solved)

      In which letters become fiction, and the universal penny post makes letter-writers of us all.

       More Than Is Good for Me

       10 A Letter Feels Like Immortality

      In which a farmer picks up his mail if he can spare the time, Emily Dickinson starts a virtual book club, and we try not to get scammed. Also: Reginald Bray enters the fray.

       All a Housewife Should Be

       11 How to Write the Perfect Letter, Part 3

      In which Lewis Carroll invents a vital addition to fruitful correspondence, the Chinese are taught to send fish in perfect English, and Edwardian stamp-tilters find new ways to say I will not marry you.

       Photographs

       12 More Letters for Sale

      In which we follow Virginia Woolf to the water’s edge, discover why a letter-writer needs a broker in Manhattan, and read the mad and willing truth about Jack Kerouac.

       Greece and London, Liberation and Capture

       13 Love in Its Later Forms

      In which Charlie Brown fails to get a Valentine but Charles Schulz writes to his sweetheart, John Keats splutters his last to Fanny Brawne, and Henry Miller commits to Anaïs Nin.

       Days Become Weeks

       14 The Modern Master

      In which we learn what we can from Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, and contemplate the idea of the Collected Letters.

       The Coming Home Question

       15 Inbox

      In which @ transforms our lives for better and worse, we examine what will happen to our emails when we die, and curators at the world’s leading