Love Letters of Great Women »

URSULA DOYLE was born in 1967. She graduated from King’s College, Cambridge with an English degree in 1989. Since then she has worked as an editor in publishing, firstly at Granta, where she was deputy editor, then at Picador. She is currently editorial director of Virago. She lives in London and was the editor for Love Letters of Great Men.

Love Letters of Great Men was published to great success in November of 2008. It was a fantastic holiday hit that continued to sell well through Valentine’s Day. The demand was fueled by the fictional book’s presence in the hit film Sex and the City.

As a companion to Love Letters of Great Men, this anthology gives the other side of the story: the secret hopes and lives of some of the greatest women in history, from writers and artists to politicians and queens. From the private papers of Anne Boleyn and Jane Austen to those of Emily Dickinson and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Love Letters of Great Women collects together some of the most romantic letters in history.

In an age of cellphones, texts, and twitters, this timeless and unique collection reminds us that none of our new modes of communication can compare to the simple joy of sitting down to read a letter from the person they love most, making this a keepsake both men and women everywhere will want to give and receive.

Publishers Weekly

In this follow-up to Love Letters of Great Men, veteran editor Doyle mines six centuries for the romantic correspondence of extraordinary women. The earliest letter comes from Lady Joan Pelham in 1399, tactfully explaining to her husband why he must abandon his fight against Richard II to protect against immediate threats at home. Tragic letters from both Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn confess their love for Henry VIII, who would eventually execute both of them. Lord Byron provides the subject for more than one letter, illuminating his tangle of relationships, and other letters do the same for William Wordsworth and Robert Schuman. Revealing letters include Queen Victoria's, exposing her cloying relationship with Prince Albert; and a letter from Emily Dickinson to her sister-in-law and long-time companion, Susan Gilbert. Doyle enriches her collection with succinct but insightful background notes, though her selections are primarily from Europe, with only a few American representatives (Abigail Adams, Edith Wharton, and Dickinson), and none from the rest of the world.
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