Book description
Remember letters? They were good, weren't they? The thrill of
receiving that battered envelope with its longed-for contents Â- all
the better for the wait... Handwritten is a celebration of
letter-writing in all its guises, a showcase for the masterpieces we
would all write if we had the time and inclination Â- the perfect
thankyou letter, a riotous despatch from a far-flung location, that
heartfelt declaration of love. As John O'Connell shows, the best
letters have much to teach us Â- Samuel Richardson's  familiar
letters'; Wilfred Owen's outpourings to his mother; the schoolboy
scatology of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin; Churchill and
Clementine's reflections on the  colour & jostle of the highway'
they trod together; the sly observational charms of Jane Austen... In
this richly entertaining book, O'Connell puts forward a passionate
case for the value of letter-writing in a distracted,
technology-obsessed world. A properly crafted letter is something to
be cherished, an act of exposure which gives shape and meaning to the
chaos of life. In the words of John Donne, Â Sir, more than kisses,
letters mingle souls;/For, thus friends absent speak.'
John O'Connell worked for several years at the London listings
magazine Time Ou. He now writes, mostly about books, for The Times, The
Guardian, New Statesman and The National. He is the author of I Told You
I Was Ill: Adventures in Hypochondria (Short Books, 2005), The Midlife
Manual (2010) and The Baskerville Legacy (2011). He is 37 and lives with
his family in south London.
