Letters of note: an eclectic collection of correspondence deserving of a wider audience

One's drop scones / Queen Elizabeth II to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower

From hell / Jack the Ripper to George Lusk

Wind the clock / E.B. White to Mr. Nadeau

I am to be executed / Mary Stuart to Henry III of France

I hear you like tomato soup / William P. MacFarland to Andy Warhol

Bill Hicks on freedom of speech / Bill Hicks to a priest

Your pal, John K. / John Kricfalusi to Amir Avni

The elephant man / Francis Carr-Gomm to The Times

I like words / Robert Pirosh to various

I can't fight any longer / Virginia Woolf to Leonard Woolf

There is no money in answering letters / Groucho Marx to Woody Allen

As dire as its title / Ian Main to head of Comedy and Light Entertainment, BBC

I stand astounded and appalled / Charles Dickens to The Times

Fifty lady sharpshooters await / Annie Oakly to U.S. President William McKinley

To hell with Hitler / Patrick Hitler to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thank you for the dream / Roald Dahl to Amyu Corcoran

How I would like to work for you! / Eudora Welty to The New Yorker.

'Music is 'life it'self / Louis Armstrong to Lance Corporal Villec

To my old master / Jourdon Anderson to Patrick Henry Anderson

My good friend Roosvelt / Fidel Castro to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

A man has to be something ; he has to matter / Hunter S. Thompson to Hume Logan

I beg you to take my child / various mothers to The Foundling Asylum

Eat your vegetables! / John W. James III to U.S. President Richard Nixon

A personal letter from Steve Martin / Steve Martin to Jerry Carlson

Is it a disgrace to be born a Chinese? / Mary Tape to San Francisco Board of Education

O.M.G. / John Arbuthnot Fisher to Winston Churchill

It is only adults who ever feel threatened / Ursula Nordstrom to a school librarian

God damn it, I split it so it will stay split / Raymond Chandler to Edward Weeks

I shall be waiting for you / Lady Shigenari to Kimura Shigenari

My muse is not a horse / Nick Cave to MTV

Our Frank / The Connell Family to the Ciulla Family

I am not afraid of robots. I am afraid of people / Ray Bradbury to Brian Sibley

Do / Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse

What do you say? I can't hear you ... / Katharine Hepburn to Spencer Tracy

The ax / Charles M. Schultz to Elizabeth Swaim

I love my wife. My wife is dead. / 0Richard Feynman to Arline Feynman

You are not so kind as you used to be / Clementine Churchill to Winston Churchill.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus / Virginia O'Hanlon to editor of the Sun

I have just written you a long letter / Alfred D. Wintle to editor of The Times

Sweetheart, come / Emma Hauck to Mark Hauck

Avenge my death / Masanobu Kuno to his children

Don't touch his hair / Three Elvis Presley fans to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower

To: my widow / Robert Scott to Kathleen Scott

Put up your dukes and write! / Jack Kerouac to Marlon Brando

You must know again my reluctance to marry / Amelia Earhart to George Putnam

I'd like to continue to be a good soldier / Eddie Slovik to General Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Galilean moons / Galileo Galilei to Leonardo Donato

The birch bark letters / Gavrila Posenya to relatives

To a top scientist / Denis Cox to a top scientist

Deep sickness seized me / Lucy Thurston to Mary Thurston

He's here, living and vivid and unforgettable forever / Stewart Stern to the Winslows

I miss my biggest heart / Emily Dickinson to Susan Gilbert

Your end is approaching / unknown to Martin Luther King, Jr.

A most important discovery / Francis Crick to Michael Crick

The skills of Leonardo da Vinci / Leonardo da Vinci to Ludovico Sforza

I am in a state of shock / Flannery O'Connor to a professor of English

Federal agent at large / Elvis Presley to U.S. President Nixon.

Do not grieve for me / Fyodor Dostoevsky to Mikhail Dostoevsky

17 million negroes cannot wait for the hearts of men to change / Jackie Robinson to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower

11 alive.. need small boat ... Kennedy / John F. Kennedy to Allied Forces

Where did that fall / Spike Milligan to Stephen Gard

In event of moon disaster / William Safire to H.R. Halderman

The most beautiful death / Laura Huxley to Julian and Juliette Huxley

Regarding your dam complaint / Stephen L. Tvedten to David L. Price

Why explore space? / Dr. ernst Stuhlinger to Sister Mary Jucunda

I am very real / Kurt Vonnegut to Charles McCarthy

An idiot of the 33rd degree / Mark Twain to J.H. Todd

Hang on, my love, and grow big and strong / Iggy Pop to Laurence

I wrote a book called The Godfather / Mario Puzo to Marlon Brando

The result would be a catastrophe / Roger Boisjoly to R.K. Lund

All the ladies like whiskers / Grace Bedell to Abraham Lincoln

I felt the risk of being overwhelmed / James Cameron to Leslie Barany

How could you go ahead of me? / a widow to Eung-Tae Lee

I am the servant of the king / Ayyab to Amenhotep IV

I shall always be near you / Sullivan Ballou to Sarah Ballou

I'm still someplace / Uncle Lynn to Peggy, Dorothy, Chuck, and Dick Jones

The birth of bonfire night / Unknown to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle.

It's up to you now / Bette Davis to B.D. Hyman

Forget your personal tragedy / Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was meant to be a composer / Samuel Barber to Marguerite Barber

Permission to land / Buang-Ly to USS Midway

Say yes I need a job / Tim Schafer to David Fox

We no longer have any right to remain silent / 36 Amercan writers to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Kipling's hints on schoolboy etiquette / Rudyard Kipling to editors of the Horsmonden School Budget

Sex does not thrive on montonony / Anaïs Nin to The Collector

Dear "Dr." Fields / Bill Baxley to Edward R. Fields

The Heiligenstadt testament / Ludwig van Beethoven to his brothers

Pay it forward / Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Webb

Eddie's house / Jim Berger to Frank Lloyd Wright

I was ready to sink into the earth with shame / form letter

Sorrow passes and we remain / Henry James to Grace Norton

It will prove invincible / Philip K. Dick to Jeff Walker

Thank you Bob / Frederic Flom to Bob Hope

New rubbish dialogue / Alex Guinness to Anne Kaufman

I refuse to be cheated out of my deathbed scene / Rebecca West to H.G. Wells

Obscene and sacrilegious / Lord Bernard Delfont to Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings

Wretched Woman! / Jermain Loguen to Sarah Logue.

This is no drill / CINCPAC to all ships

Dear 8 year-old Teresa / Wil Wheaton to Teresa Jusino

What a dandy car you make / Clyde Barrow to Henry Ford

Love, Dad / Ronald Reagan to Michael Reagan

We are sinking fast / Titanic to SS Birma

An incredible coincidence / Robert T. Lincoln to Richard W. Gilder

Pixar films don't get finished / Pete Docter to Adam

May we all get better together / Charles Bukowski to Hans van den Broek

We all feel like that now and then / Sir Archibald Clark Kerr to Lord Reginald Pembroke

It was hard to give five sons to the Navy / Alleta Sullivan to U.S. Navy

Nothing good gets away / John Steinbeck to Thom Steinbeck

the great fire of London / James Hicks to his fellow postmasters

It is like confessing a murder / Charles Darwin to Joseph D. Hooker

Hardly one. Hardly one / Arthur C. Fifield to Gertrude Stein

John Lennon signed my album / Mark Chapman to a memorabilia expert

Things to worry about / F. Scott Fitzgerald to Scottie

My wick hath a thief in it / Charles Lamb to Bernard Barton

Vote for me and I will help you out / John Beaulieu to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Do scientists pray? / Albert Einstein to Phyllis

For the sake of humanity / Mohandas Gandhi to Adolf Hitler.

I have not shot her yet / Dorothy Parker to Seward Collins

Letter to a young poet / Rainer Maria Rilke to Franz Kappus

What great births you have witnessed! / Mark Twain to Walt Whitman

Einstein's one great mistake / Albert Einstein to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Come quick to me / Zelda Fitzgerald to F. Scott Fitzgerald

Art is useless because. / Oscar Wilde to Bernulf Clegg

I leave it in your capable hands / Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol

Slaghterhouse-five / Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. to Kurt Vonnegut.