LETTERS LIVE AT THE UNION CHAPEL

Fuck off

Billy Connolly to Eric Idle

You’ll love our little club

Dashiell Hammett to Josephine Hammett (his daughter)

I will not make you a slave

Flint (10 years old) to Albert Ramon

Potto is dead

Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville West

Please change your hold music

Dr. Steven Schlozman to CVS

O, Excellent Air-Bag!

Robert Southey

We are in a desperate state

Sir Robert Falcoln Scott to Sir JM Barrie

You are one of nature’s diarrhoea sufferers

Roger Mortimer to Charles Mortimer

Take us on your expedition

Three sporty girls to Sir Ernest Shackleton

Into Eternity

Vilma Grunwald to Kurt Grunwald

Try growing up

Martha Gellhorn to Betsy Drake

You may not send us your verses

Angus and Robertson to FC Meyer

You are your father

Saul Bellow to Martin Amis

I’m going to mope about you in the bath

Dylan Thomas to Caitlin Macnamara

I have never loved as I love you

Vladimir Nabokov to Vera

I want to crawl up inside you

Patrick to Jessica

We smelt of not washing all over

Charles Darwin to A friend

They were totally good for nothing

Indians of Six Nations to William & Mary College

Also

Lady Elizabeth Compton to Lord William Compton

Along with this letter comes a play

Shelagh Delaney to Joan Littlewood

Dearest Winston you make me very unhappy

Lady Randolph Churchill to Winston Churchill

Black is the Colour

The Jelly Fish Man

Wimbledon FC to Various

It is the lightning that does the work

Mark Twain to Unknown

How can you live like this?

Oliver Beale to Richard Branson

Away from you I am as nothing

Lester Halbreich to Shirley Halbreich

Your loving Virginia

Virginia Woolf to Her mother

The battle draws near

Clara Barton to Her cousin

My darling Pickle

Sue Perkins to Pickle

Mine’s a double

Rik Mayall to Orson Welles

Am I really writing this at all?

Raymond Chandler to Charles Morton

He’s here, living and vivid and unforgettable forever

Stewart Stern to The Winslows

Are you still me?

Kirsten Gronfeld to her future self

Your most devoted reader

Walter Matthau to Pauline Kael

All these must be free

Rabbi Frank to his son

Love your enemies

Egbert Wagner to The Brewsters

I want your dry bones to quiver with joy

Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet

I shall die with my head held high

Blanca Brissac Vázquez Her son

There is no danger down here

Wilfred Owen to Susan Owen

Dear friend

Hermione Gingold to A friend

Imposter

Coat

The creative urge

John Coltrane to Don DeMichael

I have eaten

Oscar Brittle to Sydney Morning Herald

If you can understand THAT, you can understand Parsons

Kenneth Williams to Frances Meredith

Stupidity

Name withheld to Superior Insurance

He eats like a gentleman

Florence Nightingale to Mrs. Frost

I will be there in the trees

Kathleen Keyes to Irish Times

I must not feel anything

Edward Thomas to Helen Thomas

My disgust flows over

Ezra Pound to James Pinker

To all incredible women

Serena Williams to Incredible women

We don’t need discouragement, but inspiration

Zooey Deschanel to Vogue magazine

Hoping you fry in hell

Alexander Woollcott to Ira Gershwin

Don’t let mamma come in

Matthew Arnold to Lady de Rothschild

Imagine a city without pickling spice

Ralph Ellison to Albert Murray

He asked only for equality

Rod Serling to LA Times

I would like to retain ‘fart in your general direction’

Mark Forstater to Michael White

I did not know I could be so moved

George Bernard Shaw to HG Wells

Is this too much to ask of white American chivalry?

Augusta Savage to Editor of The World

I aint never seen nothing like it

Nina Simone to Andy Stroud

Like a tree in full bearing

Charlotte Bronte to W.S. Williams

I have enclosed your letter

Bobby Freeman to Greater Anglia Rail

Recasting Bond

Herbert Gusset to Daily Telegraph

I have the best mother in the world

Martin Luther King Jr. to Mother Alberta King Williams

Do not be alarmed

Gary Krist to Barbara Mackle

Not the cabbage

Owen James to The Ritz

The struggle must continue

Eddie Glaude Langston Glaude

Burning in Birmingham