The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time

If a picture speaks a thousand words, a love letter speaks a thousand more . . .

Even in this age of e-mail, faxes, and instant messaging, nothing has ever replaced the power of a love letter. Much the way light displays every color when passed through a prism, love letters express the spectrum of our emotions, offering a colorful glimpse into the soul of the writer, and of the writer’s beloved. For passionate readers and lovers of words, a letter is irresistible.

Internationally renowned collector David Lowenherz sifted through hundreds and hundreds of historical and contemporary epistles and selected the most ardent, witty, whimsical, sexy, clever, and touching letters for this inspiring collection. Unlike interviews or biographies, these letters give us marvelous insight into the lives of some of history’s most famous lovers and provide intimate glimpses into the hearts of some whose fervent or amusing expressions of devotion will come as a great surprise.

Zelda Fitzgerald to Scott Fitzgerald

Michelangelo Buonarroti to Vittoria Colonna

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart toConstanze Mozart

Harry Truman to Bess Wallace

Khalil Gibran to Mary Haskell

Benjamin Franklin to Madame Brillon

Horatio Nelson to Emma Hamilton

George Bush to Barbara Pierce

Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn

Elizabeth Barrett Browning to George Barrett

Jack London to Anna Strunsky

Marc Chagall to Bella Chagall

Ernest Hemingway to Mary Welsh

Jack Kerouac to Sebastian Sampas

Alfred Dreyfus to Lucie Dreyfus

Marjorie Fossa to Elvis Presley

Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West

Ludwig van Beethoven to the “Immortal Beloved”

Emma Goldman to Ben Reitman

Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera

Dylan Thomas to Caitlin Thomas

Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer

Napoleon Bonaparte to Josephine Bonaparte

Abigail Smith to John Adams

John Ruskin to Euphemia Ruskin

George Sand to Gustave Flaubert

Simone de Beauvoir to Nelson Algren

Anaïs Nin to Henry Miller

Voltaire to Marie Louise Denis

James Thurber to Eva Prout

George Bernard Shaw to Stella Campbell

Sarah Bernhardt to Jean Richepin

Marcel Proust to Daniel Halevy

Frank Lloyd Wright to Maude Miriam Noel

Anne Sexton to Philip Legler

Elizabeth I to Thomas Seymour

Oscar Wilde to Constance Lloyd

Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Maury

Charles Parnell to Katherine O’Shea

Lewis Carroll to Clara Cunnyngham

DAVID H. LOWENHERZ is a prominent collector and dealer in autographed letters, manuscripts, and signed photographs. His company Lion Heart Autographs, has a client list that includes the Library of Congress, New York’s Pierpont Morgan Library, and numerous private and corporate collectors. He lives in New York City with his wife and young son.