The Book of Love Letters: Canadian Kinship, Friendship, and Romance - Tapa dura

Well before there was a country called Canada, newcomers to this land were writing loving letters to one another and sending them via sleigh and boat, cart and stagecoach. The earliest one in this book is dated 1786, written in ornate prose by William Smith, the chief justice of Quebec, to his wife stuck in the United States. In the 137 years since Confederation, kinfolk, friends, old married couples, and especially young lovers have declared on paper their caring and passion. In the twenty-first century, love letters endure: the most recent one in this collection is a Valentine’s Day paean written by rock star Randy Bachman to his wife on a laptop in 2004. The letters in this unique collection are moving, dramatic, funny, and remind us that falling in love is an almost universal experience.

Audrey Grescoe has been a freelance journalist and a newspaper and magazine editor; more recently she has written books on travel and nature.

Paul Grescoe has contributed to most of the major Canadian magazines and has also written books, including detective novels and The Merchants of Venus, about the Harlequin publishing empire. They live on Bowen Island, near Vancouver, B.C.