Not all love letters are created equal. Here, a roundup of the 10 most romantic writings of all time.
In today's digital age, writing love letters can feel like a prehistoric practice. (These days, the closest you'll likely get to a romantic note is a 2 A.M. text that says: "U Up?") But despite our unfamiliarity with this very charming gesture, there was once a time when writing love letters was the most chivalrous way to win someone over. (Just look at Noah from The Notebook for proof.) Luckily, the Internet has become a home for many of these storied works; but as with most things, not all love letters are created equal. There's a certain quality to the long-forgotten romantic letter that some just got right. So, to show the world how it's done, we've rounded up the 10 most romantic love letters of all time, from Ernest Hemingway's sweet notes to his best friend Marlene Dietrich, to Frida Kahlo in her steamy writings to husband Diego Rivera. Here: A master class in affectionate prose.
Nobel Prize-winning American novelist Ernest Hemingway was a prolific, confident writer, but in his letters to actress Marlene Dietrich, he shows a more vulnerable side. Hemingway wrote Dietrich, his best friend, approximately 30 letters between 1949 to 1959, but as Dietrich's daughter, Maria Riva, explains in a New York Times article, the two were merely close friends, (though his words seem to reveal a much more flirtatious relationship).
"I can't say how every time I ever put my arms around you I felt that I was home," he writes.
While known for his ruthlessness, French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte also possessed a softer side. In letters to his wife, Joséphine, the military leader reveals a vulnerability not found in his autocratic approach to expanding the French empire. And while he later divorced her when she could not have children, Napoleon continued to write to Joséphine for years after their separation. In one particular letter, penned while Napoleon was commanding the French army near Italy a few months after their marriage, he expresses, quite romantically, how much he misses his wife.
"Since I left you, I have been constantly depressed. My happiness is to be near you. Incessantly I live over in my memory your caresses, your tears, your affectionate solicitude. The charms of the incomparable Joséphine kindle continually a burning and a glowing flame in my heart. When, free from all solicitude, all harassing care, shall I be able to pass all my time with you, having only to love you, and to think only of the happiness of so saying, and of proving it to you?"
It's no secret that Frida Kahlo and her husband, fellow artist Diego Rivera, had a tempestuous relationship, but in her love letters to Rivera, you see only an intense love. Kahlo's letters to Rivera stretch across the twenty-seven-year span of the couple's relationship, and underscore the unmistakable connection (however frenzied) the two shared. In one letter from The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait, Kahlo points to that deep, emotional intimacy.
Another artist who excelled at writing spicy love letters: famed painter, Georgia O'Keeffe. Over the course of her 30-year romance with celebrated photographer Alfred Stieglitz, O'Keeffe exchanged more than 5,000 letters (that's roughly 25,000 pages) on everything from the mundane ongoings of her daily life to some of her more passionate encounters with Stieglitz. In all, the letters show a far more seductive side to the artist than her flowery paintings may initially suggest.
"Dearest — my body is simply crazy with wanting you — If you don't come tomorrow — I don't see how I can wait for you — I wonder if your body wants mine the way mine wants yours — the kisses — the hotness — the wetness — all melting together — the being held so tight that it hurts — the strangle and the struggle."
"Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, Be calm-love me-today-yesterday-what tearful longings for you-you-you-my life-my all-farewell. Oh continue to love me-never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved. Ever thine. Ever mine. Ever ours."
Perhaps one of the most romantic love letters of all time was written by late U.S. President George H. Bush to his wife, Barbara. In 1942, on the heels of World War II, Bush enlisted in the Navy, and while stationed overseas, wrote letters to both his parents and then-girlfriend, Barbara Pierce of Rye, New York. To this day, only one love letter to Barbara remains from the former president's time overseas, as Barbara reportedly lost the majority of her letters in a move after the pair were married. In the surviving letter, Bush joyfully explains how he envisions the couple's future, and describes how "lucky" their future children will be.
"This should be a very easy letter to write — words should come easily and in short it should be simple for me to tell you how desperately happy I was to open the paper and see the announcement of our engagement, but somehow I can't possibly say all in a letter I should like to. I love you, precious, with all my heart and to know that you love me means my life. How often I have thought about the immeasurable joy that will be ours some day. How lucky our children will be to have a mother like you..."
Another former politician whose romantic writings are worth mentioning: 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. In a letter to his wife, Nancy, in 1972, prior to their 20th anniversary, Reagan (who, at the time and prior to his presidency, was serving as the Governor of California) penned a romantic note to his wife expressing his undying love for her, and explaining that he never wants to leave her side.
"The important thing is I don't want to be without you for the next 20 years, or 40, or however many there are. I've gotten very used to being happy and I love you very much indeed."
In June of 1891, Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde met Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, a then-21-year-old Oxford undergraduate and talented poet, who would come to be the author's muse and lover. In fact, it was during the course of their affair that Wilde wrote Salomé and the four great plays which, to this day, are the cornerstone of his literary legacy. The relationship, though, was often ridiculed, given the time period. Heartbreakingly, the duo had to speak secretively, despite how strongly Wilde felt about Douglas.
"Everyone is furious with me for going back to you, but they don't understand us. I feel that it is only with you that I can do anything at all. Do remake my ruined life for me, and then our friendship and love will have a different meaning to the world. I wish that when we met at Rouen we had not parted at all. There are such wide abysses now of space and land between us. But we love each other."
The King of England for 38 years, Henry VIII wrote his lover, Anne Boleyn, a collection of secret, romantic letters which still survive today. Despite being known as a despotic ruler, the letters reveal a softer side to monarch frequently viewed as relentless. The king's strong feelings for Boleyn are on full display throughout the entirety of his notes.
"But if you please to do the office of a true loyal mistress and friend, and to give up yourself body and heart to me, who will be, and have been, your most loyal servant, (if your rigour does not forbid me) I promise you that not only the name shall be given you, but also that I will take you for my only mistress, casting off all others besides you out of my thoughts and affections, and serve you only. I beseech you to give an entire answer to this my rude letter, that I may know on what and how far I may depend. And if it does not please you to answer me in writing, appoint some place where I may have it by word of mouth, and I will go thither with all my heart. No more, for fear of tiring you."
Celebrated writer Virginia Woolf and English poet Vita Sackville-West exchanged a series of love letters to each another that were, unsurprisingly, beautifully written. But it was perhaps a letter from Vita, sent from Milan on January 21, 1927, that offers the clearest, most unguarded, glimpse into their affair. Unlike Woolf's flowery, ornate prose, West is far more straightforward: "I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way."
"I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your undumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn't even feel it. And yet I believe you'll be sensible of a little gap. But you'd clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it should lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is really just a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any more by giving myself away like this — But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defenses. And I don't really resent it."