Letters of Note

Curated by Shaun Usher, Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience is a blog-based archive of letters, notes, postcards, telegrams, faxes, memos, etc. from/to people ‘of note.’ Usher includes full text as well as scans of the originals.

Some recent posts include a letter from James Thurber – “delivered, quite brilliantly, a playful jab to his attorney and friend, Morris Ernst”; a letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald to “aspiring young author and Radcliffe sophomore” Frances Turnbull who had sent a story in hopes of receiving some feedback; and a letter from Oscar Wilde wrote to a publication following an unfavorable review of his play – “not about the review itself, but about the critic’s insistence on naming him ‘John Wilde.'”

Usher’s comments are brief but clearly set the context of the correspondence and often include photographs of the letter writer as well. Letters of Note is slated to come out with a book edition in November 2012 (pre-orders available), and while Usher comments that he has “a seemingly endless supply of correspondence to plough through,” he welcomes his audience to send in their own contributions from their collections.

Usher also curates the blog site Letterheady, which is a showcase of interesting letterheads, both new and old: “It’s like Letters of Note, but with less reading,” and Lists of Note, on which Nora Ephron’s “What I Won’t and Will Miss” is a recent entry.

Usher’s blogs are without a doubt worth your time to visit and follow to keep up with daily updates and a great add-on for classroom reading.

[Teachers: If you want to consider the book for your classes, the content can be viewed by clicking on the pre-order link.]