The letters in this treasure-trove date from September 1630 - when John Winthrop, newly ensconced as governor of Massachusetts, wrote to his wife in England - to August 1996, when a young adopted woman named Michelle Song addressed a moving letter to her yet-undiscovered birth mother. In between are more than 200 other epistles - written by the celebrated and the obscure, the powerful and the powerless - that in aggregate paint a revealing portrait of the United States. The collection's range is enormous - from Groucho Marx's hilarious 1947 tirade to Warner Brothers, which was trying to block him from using 'A Night in Casablanca' as a movie title, to a June 1744 letter from "The Indians of the Six Nations" to William & Mary College, politely declining an offer to educate some of their young Whenever possible, editor Andrew Carroll presents the letters in their original form, complete with capitalization and spelling quirks , which adds to their vividness. His brief introductions tell just enough about each letter without overshadowing their subjects. This splendidly presented piece of research offers a revealing, eminently readable window onto America's past.
The letters in this treasure-trove date from September 1630 - when John Winthrop, newly ensconced as governor of Massachusetts, wrote to his wife in England - to August 1996, when a young adopted woman named Michelle Song addressed a moving letter to her yet-undiscovered birth mother. In between are more than 200 other epistles - written by the celebrated and the obscure, the powerful and the powerless - that in aggregate paint a revealing portrait of the United States. The collection's range is enormous - from Groucho Marx's hilarious 1947 tirade to Warner Brothers, which was trying to block him from using 'A Night in Casablanca' as a movie title, to a June 1744 letter from "The Indians of the Six Nations" to William & Mary College, politely declining an offer to educate some of their young Whenever possible, editor Andrew Carroll presents the letters in their original form, complete with capitalization and spelling quirks , which adds to their vividness. His brief introductions tell just enough about each letter without overshadowing their subjects. This splendidly presented piece of research offers a revealing, eminently readable window onto America's past.