Читать книгу To the Letter - Simon Garfield - Страница 6
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1 The Magic of Letters
In which we learn, in a roundabout way, how not to catch a bullet in your teeth, and ponder the value of letters in an age of email.
2 From Vindolanda, Greetings
In which inhabitants of a garrison town beneath Hadrian’s Wall communicate with the present, and we find that even in ancient Rome it was important to plump up the cushions for visitors.
3 The Consolations of Cicero, Seneca and Pliny the Younger
In which we get a proper education.
4 Love in Its Earliest Forms
In which Marcus Aurelius falls for his teacher, twelfth-century lovers meet their comeuppance, and Petrarch complains about the crappy postal service.
5 How to Write the Perfect Letter, Part 1
In which we learn to address a pope at the start of his popedom, and observe an English satirist roast a jilted lover.
6 Neither Snow nor Rain nor the Flatness of Norfolk
In which the Pastons welcome us into their delightful Norwich borders home, Henry VIII falls in love again, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet their fate.
Your New Lover
7 How to Write the Perfect Letter, Part 2
In which Madame de Sévigné and Lord Chesterfield become accidental heroes, and The Ladies Complete Letter-Writer tells us how to ask a friend for a summer in the country.
Entirely Gone
8 Letters for Sale
In which letters become valuable slithers of history, Napoleon and Nelson do battle in the auction room, and a British soldier in India has a challenging time with the locals.
Let Us Mention Marriage
9 Why Jane Austen’s Letters Are so Dull (and Other Postal Problems Solved)
In which letters become fiction, and the universal penny post makes letter-writers of us all.
More Than Is Good for Me
10 A Letter Feels Like Immortality
In which a farmer picks up his mail if he can spare the time, Emily Dickinson starts a virtual book club, and we try not to get scammed. Also: Reginald Bray enters the fray.
All a Housewife Should Be
11 How to Write the Perfect Letter, Part 3
In which Lewis Carroll invents a vital addition to fruitful correspondence, the Chinese are taught to send fish in perfect English, and Edwardian stamp-tilters find new ways to say I will not marry you.
Photographs
12 More Letters for Sale
In which we follow Virginia Woolf to the water’s edge, discover why a letter-writer needs a broker in Manhattan, and read the mad and willing truth about Jack Kerouac.
Greece and London, Liberation and Capture
13 Love in Its Later Forms
In which Charlie Brown fails to get a Valentine but Charles Schulz writes to his sweetheart, John Keats splutters his last to Fanny Brawne, and Henry Miller commits to Anaïs Nin.
Days Become Weeks
14 The Modern Master
In which we learn what we can from Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, and contemplate the idea of the Collected Letters.
The Coming Home Question
15 Inbox
In which @ transforms our lives for better and worse, we examine what will happen to our emails when we die, and curators at the world’s leading universities dust down Salman Rushdie’s Performa 5400.
In the Flesh
Epilogue: Dear Reader
In which the author considers how one may keep history alive, and begins a pen-pal correspondence with an English professor in Connecticut.
