Writing romantic love letters can feel like a prehistoric practice these dayswhere do you even get stamps?
It’s not too late to try it yourself!
Dont wait until Valentines Day to make the gesture, either.
A Letter, 1893. By artist Klavdi Stepanov.
The world needs more romance, always.
So, get to writing!
Before you swoon: He divorced her when she could not have children.
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
But Napoleon continued to write to Josephine for years after their separation.
“Since I left you, I have been constantly depressed.
My happiness is to be near you.
Former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush.
Incessantly I live over in my memory your caresses, your tears, your affectionate solicitude.
The charms of the incomparable Josephine kindle continually a burning and a glowing flame in my heart.
Letter writing doesnt have to be complicated.
Virgina Woolf
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
Nothing compares to your hands, nothing like the green-gold of your eyes.
My body is filled with you for days and days.
Vita Sackville-West
You are the mirror of the night.
The violent flash of lightning.
The dampness of the earth.
Poets Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky
The hollow of your armpits is my shelter.
My fingers touch your blood.
After all, this is the woman who painted…“flowers.”
Vladimir Nabokov and his wife Véra Nabokov.
I miss you + you’re hot = I want you.
Start with yearn, ache, long for, and can’t wait and go from there.
Oh continue to love me-never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
An undated engraving depicting Abelard reading to Heloise.
Hot tip: Twas just means it was, and fortnight means two weeks.
Former President George H.W.
Bush and Barbara Bush.
In the surviving letter, Bush joyfully explained how he envisioned the couple’s future.
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…
If you want them, say it.If you want tomarry them, say it!
Romantic love letters are the one form where it’s crucial to have absolutely no subtext.
Put it out there.
Unfortunately their relationship was not accepted at the time and the duo carried on their affair in secret.
Wilde’s surviving letters make the enduringpower of their loveclear.
Everyone is furious with me for going back to you, but they don’t understand us.
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.”
Job keeping you apart?
Parents ever so slightly judgmental?
You’re got yourself a tragic love story, the most romantic kind.
And if there’s nothing standing between you, make it up!
Yes, you might role play in letters.
It’s fan autofiction.
Henry was a despotic ruler with six wivestwo of whom he beheaded, including Anne.
No more, for fear of tiring you."
Let your imagination run wild.
Unlike Woolf’s flowery, ornate prose, West is far more straightforward.
And yet I believe youll be sensible of a little gap.
You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I dont love.
I have brought it to a fine art.
But you have broken down my defenses.
And I dont really resent it."
The person you like is the prettiest, smartest, bestest person ever.
No, I really liked that nude you sent.
Your spirit is with me.
Did you send it or do I just have it?
Think of a romantic love letter as sing-song-y.
Golden soul of me?
Toss pretty words together and see how they shake out.
If you’re really stumped, get some of those poetry fridge magnets and see what comes to you.
Will she refuse to answer my coarse insulting questions?
It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her.
I think I would know Noras fart anywhere.
I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women.
It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have.
If you love farts, say you love farts.
you’ve got the option to love farts.
There’s nothing wrong with loving farts.
More love letters should be about farts, I say!
Of all on this list, perhaps this is the most mournful.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless.
A little emo perhaps, but shit happens.
You could die at any time.
Say you’ll haunt your S.O.
I kiss you but wont say where, there are no words for that.
I dont know how Ill survive the week.
My tenderness, my happiness, what words can I write for you?
Such agitationand such divine peace: melting clouds immersed in sunshinemounds of happiness.
You want to enjoy life with themso tell them so!
It can be as simple as, Loving you makes me so happy.
Everyone daydreams; why not get content out of it for a letter to a lover?
Play out a little fantasy scenario and write how much you’d like it to be true.
An undated engraving depicting Abelard reading to Heloise.
However, their tragic love story has formed the basis of our current cultural conception of chivalric love.
What have I to hope for after this loss of you?
This is the greatest of my afflictions.
Eh, maybe don’t copy this one…
It’s just an example!
A previous version of this story, written by HowAboutWe, was published in 2013.
It has since been updated.
