Product Description

It’s as old as time: the breakup letter. The kiss-off. The Dear John. The big adios. Simple in its premise, stunningly perfect in its effect. From Anne Boleyn to Sex and the City writer/producer Cindy Chupack, from women both well-known and unknown, imaginary and real, the letters here span the centuries and the emotions—providing a stirring, utterly gratifying glimpse at the power, wit, and fury of a woman’s voice. In a never-before-published letter, Anaïs Nin gives her lover, C. L. Baldwin, a piece of her mind. Charlotte Brontë, in formal fashion, refuses the marriage proposal of Henry Nussey. In a previously unpublished letter, Sylvia Plath writes to her childhood friend and brief lover, Phillip McCurdy, expressing her wish to maintain a platonic relationship. And “Susie Q.” lets “Johnny Smack-O” know that she’s onto his philandering.

The brilliance of the mad missives, caustic communiqués, downhearted dispatches, sweet send-offs, and every other sort of good-bye that fills these pages will surely resonate with anyone who has ever loved, lost, left, languished, or laughed a hearty last laugh.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1345692 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-30
• Released on: 2003-12-30
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 8.19" h x .90" w x 5.49" l, .78 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Whether a two-line note, a brief e-mail, an expansive retelling of a romance or a lamenting farewell, each letter in journalist Holmes's first book offers a snapshot from the end of an affair. With anger, sorrow, wit, intelligence and whining, such authors as Sylvia Plath, Mary Wollstonecraft, Anne Boleyn, Charlotte Bronte, Virginia Woolf and countless lesser-known women analyze what went wrong, say good-bye and address the future, some more happily than others, some impulsively and others with great forethought. Chapters group similar letters (the "tell off," the "just friends," the "marriage refusal," the "unsent letter," etc.), mixing contemporary and historical compositions, so that Monica Lewinsky's 1997 e-mail to President Bill Clinton follows Aline Bernstein's 1930s' correspondence with Thomas Wolfe in the "silent treatment" chapter, and the letter from a young woman named Lois to serviceman Harry Leister during WWII follows Valley of the Dolls author Jacqueline Susann's 1942 missive to film producer Irving Mansfield in the "Dear John" chapter. Holmes's comprehensive collection includes letters from epistolary and narrative novels beginning with Ovid's Heroides; prescriptive letters culled from letter-writing manuals; and unsent letters from as recently as October 2001. The careful reader will appreciate the subtle differences between many of the letters, but will have to plow through a quantity of less interesting work before happening on a gem. Many of the letters cannot stand on their own and beg for greater context and additional details about the author and the relationship. Still, literary romantics will have fun thumbing through this unique assemblage of send-off notes.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Motivated by her own disappointing relationship and the responses she received to the "breakup" letter she sent to her lover and to ten other people on the Internet, freelance writer Holmes compiled this anthology of 356 real or fictional letters of love, hatred, anger, disappointment, disgust, and rejection written by women when relationships with their lovers, suitors, or husbands went awry. The collection offers sent and unsent letters between various notables, including Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII, Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay, Princess Margaret to Robin Douglas-Home, Jacqueline Susann to Irvin Mansfield, and Monica Lewinsky to Bill Clinton, as well as those between unknown individuals, those published as literature (e.g., The Letters of Abelard and Heloise), and those published in letter-writing manuals. The anthology is divided into 13 sections, each chronologically arranged, according to types, such as "Marriage Refusal," "Prescriptive Letters," "Goodbye Letter," "Tell-Off," "Dear John," and "Divorce Letter." This book will be consoling to those who discover the universality of experiences and emotions, depressing to those who find the collection an overwhelming overdose of reactions to unfulfilled relationships, and inspiring to those motivated to pursue the relationships of notables mentioned or to study letters as literature. Appropriate for public and academic libraries.
Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, NJ
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Who among us hasn't been tongue-tied at moments of great emotion such as the traumatic end of a love affair? Holmes has found and anthologized a wealth of letters by women who relied on their pen rather than their voice to convey intense feelings of longing, regret, anger, and dismay to their former significant others. Whether famous, historic, infamous, ordinary, or anonymous, each of these women has distilled the essence of her emotions in letters that will inspire all who find themselves in similar situations. Vehement and skillful letters by writers George Sand, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath simmer beside those of women with no claim to fame, and for the most part the break-up letters of average women hold up well against those of their more lionized sisters, although Monica Lewinsky's to Bill Clinton is out of place and jarring in tone. Arranged chronologically within intriguing subject groupings, this collection is both involving and amusing, perfect either for a long read, or for "dipping in" as the reader chooses. Danise Hoover
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