I used to just adore Antonia Fraser as a girl, about the time this anthology came out. So browsing my favorite thrift store, this 1977 Vintage Paperback called to me from the shelves and I just couldn't turn away. After 42 years, the pages of this book are tanning but its contents are still very interesting. Fraser's categories of love letters include Passions, Ecstasies, Fears and Worries, Declarations and Farewells.

The first section "Declarations" begins with the sweet letter of Margery Brews to Sir John Paston. Miss Brews adamantly set her cap for Sir John. Though, as her letter states, there were trials in achieving her goal, she did marry Sir John and they had a happy marriage.

Benjamin Disraeli's letter to Mary Anne Wyndham Lewis, the widow, does not give the impression that these two will be happily married. It's filled with frustration and rage. But the two did marry and they were happy together for many years.

Perusing this collection is entertaining. I was most touched by Zelda Fitzgerald's letters to F. Scott Fitzgerald, her husband. She was mad, he was an alcoholic and their lives were tragic but their love still sizzles from the pages of this old book, published years after both had died.

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Visiting Dancing Goats after nearly two months since this book was left in the Little Free Library there, I was happy to see that it now absent, perhaps chosen by another reader. May it have great BookCrossing journeys!