From the editor of the New York Times bestseller and instant classic Letters of Note comes the companion book Letters of Note: Volume 2. Shaun Usher compiled more than 125 captivating letters, and the result is a collection of correspondence that spans centuries and place—written by the famous, the not-so-famous, and the downright infamous.
To give you a taste of this splendid book, check out this letter from Ursula Le Guin.
Ursula Le Guin to John Radziewicz
Circa 1987
In 1987, multi-award-winning author Ursula Le Guin was asked to supply a blurb for Synergy: New Science Fiction, Volume 1, the first in a new four-part series of anthologies edited by George Zebrowski intended to showcase science fiction stories from authors both established and up-and-coming. And here is her response.
John Radziewicz
Senior Editor
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
111 5th Ave
New York NY 10003
Dear Mr. Radziewicz,
I can imagine myself blurbing a book in which Brian Aldiss, predictably, sneers at my work, because then I could preen myself on my magnanimity. But I cannot imagine myself blurbing a book, the first of a new series and hence presumably exemplary of the series, which not only contains no writing by women, but the tone of which is so self-contentedly, exclusively male, like a club, or a locker room. That would not be magnanimity, but foolishness. Gentlemen, I just don’t belong here.
Yours truly,
Ursula K. Le Guin
Read two more letters from Bertha Brewster to Daily Telegraph and Jack London to Anna Strunsky here.