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Simon & Schuster
April 2014
On Sale: April 14, 2014
ISBN: 145168715X EAN: 9781451687156 Kindle: B00DPM7YW2 Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
The author of the much-admired Tolstoy and the Purple Chair
goes on a quest through the history of letters and her own
personal correspondence to discover and celebrate what is
special about the handwritten letter. Hailed as witty, moving, enlightening, and inspiring,
Signed, Sealed, Delivered begins with Nina Sankovitch’s
discovery of a trove of hundred year-old letters. The
letters are in an old steamer trunk she finds in her
backyard and include missives written by a Princeton
freshman to his mother in the early 1900s. Nina’s own son is
heading off to Harvard, and she hopes that he will write to
her, as the Princeton student wrote to his mother and as
Nina wrote to hers. But times have changed. Before Nina can
persuade her child of the value of letters, she must first
understand for herself exactly what it is about letters that
make them so significant—and just why she wants to receive
letters from her son. Sankovitch sets off on a quest through
the history of letter writing—from the ancient Egyptians to
the medieval lovers Abelard and Heloise, from the letters
received by President Lincoln after his son’s death to the
correspondence of Edith Wharton and Henry James. Sankovitch uncovers and defines the specific qualities that
make letters so special, examining not only historical
letters but also the letters in epistolary novels, her
husband’s love letters, and dozens more sources, including
her son’s brief reports from college on the weather and his
allowance. In this beautifully written book, Nina Sankovitch reminds us
that letters offer proof and legacy of what is most
important in life: love and connection. In the end, she
finds, the letters we write are even more important than the
ones we wait for.
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