Shaun Usher

This new edition sees the collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring and unusual letters updated with 14 riveting new missives and a new introduction from curator Shaun Usher....

Beethoven yearns to see his famously unknown Immortal Beloved. A Victorian farmer proposes marriage to a woman he's never met. Zora Neale Hurston gives her ex-husband relationship advice. Mildred Loving asks the ACLU for help challenging the racist marriage laws of the Jim Crow South....

Florence Nightingale sends care instructions to the woman who has just adopted her angora tomcat, Mr. White. T. S. Eliot issues a rhyming birthday party invitation to all Jellicle cats for his four-year-old godson. Jack Kerouac's mother grieves at the death of the family cat....

Defeated Cossacks taunt the pompous sultan of the Ottoman Empire. A black corporal beseeches Abraham Lincoln to ensure that his regiment receives proper payment for performing their duties. Mohandas Gandhi urges Adolf Hitler to turn back the tide of war....

Speeches of Note is a celebration of oratory old, new and unspoken. It is an obsessively curated, richly illustrated and sumptuously produced collection of speeches from throughout the ages....

In Letters of Note: Dogs, Shaun Usher brings together a delightful collection of correspondence about our canine friends....

In Letters of Note: Dogs, Shaun Usher brings together a delightful collection of correspondence about our canine friends, featuring affectionate accounts of pups' playful misdemeanors, heartfelt tributes to loyal fidos, and shared tales of remarkable hounds....

A fascinating new volume of messages about motherhood, from the author of the best-selling Letters of Note collections. In Letters of Note: Mothers, Shaun Usher gathers together exceptional missives by and about mothers....

In Letters of Note: Fathers, Shaun Usher collects together remarkable correspondence by and about fathers, including proud parental words of love, advice from experienced dads to new ones, as well as letters from both frustrated and adoring offspring....

A splendid new volume of missives about art, from the author of the best-selling Letters of Note collections....

Verdi writes to his publisher about a man who hated Aida so much that he wants his money back. Keith Richards tells his aunt about bumping into a former schoolmate named Mick Jagger, who also loves Chuck Berry. Yo-Yo Ma wonders whether Leonard Bernstein remembers introducing him onstage....