Hello,
I am a writer in New York and currently editing a book for publisher Carroll
& Graf, an anthology of women's Dear John/breakup letters.
Although the term "Dear John" has commonly been used to describe letters
from a woman to a man in the military in which she is ending a relationship,
I am also looking for any sort of letter by a woman in which she is ending a
relationship OR mourning/venting/explaining her side of an already-ended
romance, whether or not she was the one who ended it.
I have some wonderful, amazing letters from such women as Edith Wharton,
Queen Elizabeth I and Isadora Duncan, but am looking for more.
Unfortunately, since I am unable to travel to the UK and visit your
university/public libraries & historical societies, I fear I am missing out
on some amazing letters. I am hoping that your collective experience and
knowledge might be able to help me in locating the sorts of letters I am
looking for, which are very specific in nature and difficult to find. I
know that they are out there! :)
If you have come across such a letter in your research/work in manuscript
archives, I would very much appreciate hearing about it. I am NOT only
looking for letters written by "notable"/famous women - in fact, I have many
from regular women from all centuries, and am committed to incorporating
more of these.
To give more of a sense of the type of material I am looking for, I am
looking for material of a whole host of emotions: anger, hurt, melancholy,
resignation, cheerfulness, confusion...basically any sort of letter in which
a woman is somehow commenting on the end of a romance to the person with
whom she had the romance. I want everything from letters refusing marriage
to letters questioning why the other person has deserted them, to classic
"Dear John" letters.
I can be reached at:
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Thank you very much for your time.
Sincerely,
Anna Holmes
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