Love Letters of Great Men and Women From The Eighteenth Century To The Present Day

by C.H. Charles

This wonderful collection of timeless love letters includes the words of Ludwig Van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Winston Churchill, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Keats, King Henry VIII, Voltaire, Vincent Van Gogh, Charlotte Bronte, Lord Byron, Lewis Carrol, Leo Tolstoy, Pierre Curie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many more.

Genres: Nonfiction, Romance, Poetry

348 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

Reviews

[Cingashe Nogaya Motale]

I love it, Letters from the Tsarina of Russia, to Nikolas her husband.

[Naima Naji]

This book felt like a psychotic episode. I loved it. No, actually, I hated it, but I couldn't stop myself from reading the entire thing.

[Lance]

I found these love letters to be quite odious.

First, the good stuff:

It was nice to see some letters of both men and women, although the "Great" in the title clearly applies to the men selected, as "Great" women of the same time period are overlooked unless they happened to be romantically linked to a "Great" man.

It felt good reading the pitiful attempts at many "Greats" trying to explain their love. Even "Great" authors included write poorly in their letters, beaten by their emotions. At the same time, many of the letters are banal and humanize some of these "Greats" too. That's always nice.

The bad stuff:

Apparently every "Great" person ever was completely straight. And white European/Russian. Go figure. That sucks.

I had a hard time shaking the feeling I was reading private words not meant for anyone else's eyes. I don't want anyone publishing my text messages, even after I'm dead.

The little introductions written, supposedly, by C.H. Charles, are boring, bland, confusing, and contrived. Charles acts as a value-giving curator, telling readers who is (and therefore isn't) "Great" and so on. In one particularly troubling intro, he even drops the n-word for no reason.

The letters are often boring and repetitive. Out of context of the letters before and after, much less the lives lived before and after, a letter is almost nothing. Put one after the other, most of these letters end up falling into categories of sickly sweet nothings, pointless drudgeries, or emo boy lamentations.

The worst part, overall, is that these "love" letters often show a very toxic version of love: unequal, manipulative, and selfish.

[Robs]

Just a forewarning, it doesn’t display the prose type as you would have expected and seen in the Sex and The City movie.

Nonetheless, it’s a passable anthology that draws a humanistic picture of Rousseau, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Keats, Victor Hugo, Mozart, Beethoven, etc as lovers. Aside from the timelessness of the love letters in retaining its original form, I also appreciated the brief history lesson that came with it. The book includes context to make sense of who the lovesick writer is, to whom they are writing to, and what time period it was written.

[Karina Paramitha]

I was so excited to read the book at the first place. The reason it turned into disappointment is in each of the letters, the author did not attached the respective history - when, when, in what kind of situation - the letters were written. It causes lack of emotional bonding with reader.

[Thornback]

Very interesting read! For many instances though, the author fails to provide enough relevant information for the letters and I did a good deal of research on my own trying to find more context. Would be great if someone wrote a companion or simply expounded on this edition.

[Joanne Vickery]

Letters like these I don't see anymore. So much love, happiness, sadness to despair of emotions written in such intensity. They moved me!

[Merrilee]

Okay, this book is pretty amazing. Totally tender and just down right lovley! For those who saw SATC the movie, this book inspired the book Carrie was reading and that Big used in all his emails. The poem by our boy Ludwig Bethoven is in here, and you will notice that they changed it from
"Eternally thine, eternally mine, eternally ours" to "Ever thine, ever mine, ever ours" for the film, which I don't really mind. It's all beautiful!

[Erin]

Some were brilliant, others very much not brilliant. I think I would have liked it more if some of these were edited out. Beethoven is just incredibly moving, and if his letters don't convince you, then please please download and listen to 1) the presto agitato third movement of Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor "Quasi una fantasia," Op. 27, No. 2, and 2) the first movement (grave - allegro) of Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor "Sonata Pathétique," Op. 13. Then read the letters again. Whoa.

[Freidia]

It does seem a little unethical but as a hopeless romantic myself, I just could not deprive myself of the delight in learning about the romantic feelings of the greatest men in history. The letters are all that a fool in love can dream of, and if you are one of those special few who still keep faith in handwritten love letters then you ought to go through these beautiful expressions of true and passionate love.

[Valerie]

This book was really hard to get through. I didn't love it... poorly organized.

[Holly]

A touch of romance realism.

[Abby]

It's not an easy read...but if you want to see how people used to connect before the phone, e-mails, & texts read this book!

[Kpowers]

Wonderful reading for anyone who appreciates love and romance. I own one of the copies from the 1920's.

[Jess]

Men today should write love letters more often

[Maer]

Cute but nothing uber earth-shatteringly romantic.

[Stephanie]

This book is thin, but the pages hold abundance.