Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

could anyone direct me to a author, authors who like letter writting and are known for it?

i have an intrest in letter writting.

i have Collected Neal Cassady Letters
I was thinking of Dalton Trumbo too...but who else?

HP Lovecraft
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

They wrote letters all the time. They spent more time writing letters than they spent writing their literature.

cool. i'll check them out...maybe latter when i'm not having mid-terms i will bring up the descussion of the signifigacne and loss of the art form of writting letters.

letter writing as a literary form is very popular.

entire novels, especially from the 18th century, are composed of letters. check out "dangerous liaisons" (i'm too tired to find the actual title in french. just transpose those words and misspell them and you'll have the actual name of the book).

some volumes of cs lewis's letters have been published. also, you have napolean and josephine if you're looking for something romantic. the ny public library just purchased all of burrough's collected writings including letters, but those won't be available for a little while i'm sure.

kafka's diaries are published as a blog daily. google "kafka diary blog" and i'm sure you'll find it. they're not letters, per se, but apparently he invented blogging and there are interesting real life bits in there, including conversations with max brod.

two others that come to mind are twain and goethe. and ginsberg.

firsty wrote:
entire novels, especially from the 18th century, are composed of letters. check out "dangerous liaisons" (i'm too tired to find the actual title in french. just transpose those words and misspell them and you'll have the actual name of the book).

Les liaisons dangereuses.

thanks guys.

I currently have Neal Cassady's collected letters, i like them because his letter writting is like my own. i have Jack Kerouacs...i did find a collection of william s. burroughs, or i remember seeing it...that be cool to finish my beat collection or ginsberg for that matter....i was trying to branch out a little, but i want the kind of letters that are frank and honnest and really get to the heart of communication.

i defentely should check out goethe too.

I've been reading Richard Holmes' biography of Coleridge. It features lots and lots of excerpts from his letters. I think you'd enjoy reading them.

(oddly enough, as I'm reading this biography, I keep being reminded of Jack Kerouac -- did you know that Coleridge liked to go on rucksack hiking trips through the mountainous countryside? I didn't -- and even sometimes Neal Cassady, with that sort of chameleonic power with every visible appearance of sincerity (whether the sincerity is there or not))