From a letter to Mark Twain, postmarked October 1, 1879, from Carl Jensen, a customs officer in Stubbekøbing, Denmark. Twain’s annotation reads, “Preserve this remarkable letter.” Dear Mark Twain: Letters…

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From Italo Calvino: Letters 1941–1985, out this month from Princeton University Press. Franco Maria Ricci, a publisher, commissioned Calvino to prepare a text for a volume containing reproductions of the…

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From open letters by the actor Gérard Depardieu, addressed to French prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and to the Russian press. In January, Depardieu obtained Russian citizenship in order to evade…

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From Here and Now, a collection of letters exchanged by novelists J. M. Coetzee and Paul Auster between 2008 and 2011, out this month from Viking. 24 august 2009 Dear…

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From an October 9, 2012, email sent by Lucy Bird, then chief executive of Marketing Edinburgh, to city councillors Sue Brice and Alastair Maclean, during the development of an ad…

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P. G. Wodehouse and the costs of innocence

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From a twenty-seven-page letter by Anders Behring Breivik sent last October to corrections officials in Norway. Breivik is currently serving a twenty-one-year sentence in a maximum-security prison near Oslo for…

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From emails received by Michael D’Antuono in response to his painting The Truth, which depicts President Barack Obama in a crucifixion-like pose and wearing a crown of thorns. D’Antuono originally…

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From an October 26 letter from Dina Kourda to Joe Dillman, the street-maintenance superintendent in Irvine, California. As a concerned citizen of Irvine, I am writing today on behalf of…

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