Literary delights

Letters, horses, ancient monuments and sporting catnip.

- Ettie Neil-Gallacher

A Literary Letter for Every Day of the Year

In an age when the post seems to consist of bills and utility statements, beyond the occasional birthday card or thank-you letter, our society's epistolary skills are seriously slipping. I am fortunate in that I have a dear university friend who still, occasionally, writes to me. I treasure these missives, not only because they are so beautifully written but also because they are so vanishingly rare.

This wonderful compilation of literary letters serves as a reminder of what we're missing out on. By 'literary', Liz Ison means these are the letters of poets, playwrights and novelists, and chosen for their literary merits as well as what they reveal about the author. So we have a furiously brief note from Edith Nesbit on her deathbed, declaring how she 'strongly disapprove[s]' of a recipe for marmalade, while Oscar Wilde doubles down on his sybaritic ways in an epistle to Bosie ('I threw the pearl of my soup into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes").

Indeed the only problem here is the idea that the reader needs to ration these entries to one a day: almost impossible.

By Liz Ison

Batsford, £30