100 Letters That Changed the World

by Colin Salter

Overview

A fascinating collection of some of the most significant, interesting, and groundbreaking letters ever written.

The written word has the power to inspire, astonish, and entertain, as this collection of 100 letters that changed history will show. Ordered chronologically, the letters range from ink-inscribed tablets that vividly describe life in the Roman Empire to remarkable last wills and testaments, passionate outpourings of love and despair, and succinct notes with deadly consequences.

Entries include:

• A job application from Leonardo da Vinci, with barely a mention of his artistic talents.
• Henry VIII’s love letters to Anne Boleyn, which eventually led to the dissolution of the monasteries.
• The scrawled note that brought about Oscar Wilde’s downfall.
• Emile Zola’s “J’accuse!” open letter, in support of an alleged spy and against anti-Semitism.
• Beatrix Potter’s correspondence with a friend’s son that introduced the character of Peter Rabbit.
• A last letter from the Titanic.
• Nelson Mandela’s ultimatum to the South African president.

A stunning new edition with an elegant new cover, this fascinating book is perfect both for reading cover-to-cover and dipping into to discover the delights within.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849948685
Publisher:	Rizzoli
Publication date:	09/03/2024
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	7.58(w) x 9.42(h) x 0.91(d)

About the Author

Colin Salter is a prolific author of literary history. For Batsford he has written 100 Books That Changed the World, 100 Letters That Changed the World, and 100 Speeches That Roused the World. He is the author of a biography of Mark Twain and is currently working on a history of the books in one family’s three-hundred-year-old library. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, dog, and bicycle.

Table of Contents

Introduction 10

c. 346 BC The Spartans respond to a letter from Philip II of Macedon 14

44 BC Caesar's murderers correspond to work out their next move 16

c. 50 AD St. Paul guides the principles of Christianity through his letters 18

c. 100 AD Tablets reveal details of life at the edge of the Roman Empire 20

c. 107 AD Pliny the Younger describes the eruption at Pompeii to Tacitus 22

c. 450 AD Romano Britons plead for help from Rome as the empire fails 24

1215 English barons try to flex their legal muscle after Magna Carta 26

1429 Joan of Arc tells Henry VI she has God on her side 28

c. 1480 Leonardo da Vinci sets out his skills to the Duke of Milan 30

1485 Henry VII writes to English nobles asking for their support 32

1493 Columbus explains his discoveries to the king of Spain 34

1521 Martin Luther tells his friend,"Let your sins be strong" 36

1528 Henry VIII writes a love letter to Anne Boleyn 38

1542 De las Casas exposes Spain's atrocities in the New World 40

1554 Elizabeth I writes to Bloody Mary, begging for her life 42

1586 Babington's plot is revealed in coded letters to Mary, Queen of Scots 44

1588 Philip II of Spain insists the Armada press on and attack England 46

1605 Lord Monteagle gets a carefully worded warning … 48

1610 Galileo explains the first sighting of the moons of Jupiter 50

1660 Charles II reassures Parliament that they will be in control 52

1688 The English nobility make Prince William of Orange an offer 54

1773 Ben Franklin's stolen mail reveals a political scandal 56

1776 Abigail Adams tells husband John to "Remember the Ladies" 58

1777 George Washington employs his first spy in the Revolutionary War 60

1787 Jefferson advises his nephew to question the existence of God 62

1791 Mozart writes to his wife as he struggles to finish Requiem 64

1791 Maria Reynolds tells Alexander Hamilton her husband has found out 66

1793 Thomas Jefferson wants a French botanist to explore the northwest 68

1793 After murdering Marat in his bath, Charlotte Corday writes in despair 70

1805 On the eve of battle, Lord Nelson sends a message to his fleet 72

1812 Napoleon informs Alexander I that France and Russia are at war 74

1830 As machines replace farm labor, Captain Swing issues a threat 76

1831 Charles Darwin gets an offer to become the naturalist on a surveying ship 78

1840 The first postage stamp transforms the sending of letters 80

1844 Friedrich "Fred" Engels begins a lifelong correspondence with Karl "Moor" Marx 82

1845 Baudelaire writes a suicide letter to his mistress … and lives 84

1861 Major Robert Anderson reports he has surrendered Fort Sumter 86

1861 On the eve of battle, Sullivan Ballou writes to his wife, Sarah 88

1862 Abraham Lincoln sends General McClellan an ultimatum 90

1862 Abraham Lincoln spells out his Civil War priorities to Horace Greeley 92

1863 William Banting wants the world to know how he lost weight 94

1864 General Sherman reminds the citizens of Atlanta that war is hell 96

1880 Vincent van Gogh writes an emotional letter to his brother, Theo 98

1888 A Chicago Methodist training school launches a moneymaker 100

1890 George Washington Williams sends a furious open letter to King Leopold II of Belgium 102

1892 Alexander Graham Bell writes to Helen Keller's teacher Anne Sullivan 104

1893 Beatrix Potter illustrates a letter to cheer up five-year-old Noel Moore 106

1894 Pierre Curie sends Maria a letter begging her to come back and study 108

1897 Oscar Wilde writes a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas from Reading Gaol 110

1898 Writer Émile Zola accuses the French army of an anti-Semitic conspiracy 112

1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright send news to their father, Bishop Milton Wright 114

1907 John Muir lobbies Teddy Roosevelt about incursions into Yosemite 116

1909 Lewis Wickes Hine reports to the National Child Labor Committee 118

Captain Scott: "We have been to the Pole and we shall die like gentlemen" 120

1912 The very final letter from the Titanic that was never sent 122

1917 Zimmermann offers Mexico the return of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico 124

1917 Lord Stamfordham suggests a new name for the British royal family 126

1917 Siegfried Sassoon sends an open letter to The Times 128

1919 Adolf Hitler's first anti-Semitic writing, a letter sent to Adolf Gemlich 130

1935 Master spy Guy Burgess gets a reference to join the BBC 132

1939 Eleanor Roosevelt takes a stand against the Daughters of the American Revolution 134

1939 Albert Einstein and Leo Szilárd warn President Franklin D. Roosevelt 136

1939 Mussolini congratulates Hitler on his pact with Russia 138

1940 Winston Churchill pens a blunt response to his private secretary 140

1941 Roosevelt sends Churchill the poem that moved Abraham Lincoln 142

1941 Virginia Woolf writes a final letter to husband Leonard 144

1941 Winston Churchill gets an urgent request from the codebreakers 146

1941 Telegram reports that Pearl Harbor is under attack 148

1943 General Nye sends General Alexander a misleading letter … by submarine 150

1943 Oppenheimer gets the go-ahead to research an atomic bomb 152

1943 J. Edgar Hoover receives "The Anonymous Letter" 154

1943 The shipwrecked JFK sends a vital message with two Solomon Islanders 156

1948 Marshat Tito warns Stalin to stop sending assassination squads 158

1952 Lillian Hellman sends a letter and a messageto Senator McCarthy 160

1953 William Borden identifies J. Robert Oppenheimer as a Soviet spy 162

1958 Jackie Robinson tells Eisenhower his people are tired of waiting 164

1960 Wallace Stegner composes a paean to the American wilderness 166

1961 Nelson Mandela sends the South African prime minister an ultimatum 168

1962 Decca sends a rejection letter to Beatles manager Brian Epstein 170

1962 On the brink of war, Khrushchev sends a conciliatory letter to Kennedy 172

1962 Kennedy replies to Khrushchev as tensions ease 174

1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. sends a letter from Birmingham City Jail 176

1963 Profumo's resignation puts an end to British politics' biggest sex scandal 178

1965 Che Guevara tells Fidel Castro he wants to continue the fight 180

1973 James McCord writes to Judge John Sirica after the Watergate trial 182

1976 Ronald Wayne sells his 10 percent share in Apple for $800 184

1976 Bill Gates writes an open letter to computer hobbyists who are ripping off his software 186

1991 Michael Schumacher crosses out "the" and becomes World Champion 188

1999 Boris Yeltsin admits running Russia was tougher than he expected 190

2001 Sherron Watkins sends a letter criticizing Enron's dubious accounting 192

2003 Dr. David Kelly admits he was the source for critical BBC report 194

2005 Bobby Henderson asks Kansas to acknowledge the Spaghetti Monster 196

2010 Chelsea Manning writes to Wikileaks with a data dump 198

2010 Astronauts lament America's lack of a space delivery system 200

2013 Pussy Riot singer trades philosophies with Slavoj Zizek 202

2013 Edward Snowden has a shocking revelation for the German press 204

2013 The whistleblowers appeal to future whistleblowers 206

2017 Letters-the next investment boom to follow art? 208

2018 Women in the entertainment industry demand change 210

2019 Greta Thunberg reads a letter to the Indian prime minister 212

Addendum: Helen Keller writes to Alexander Graham Bell 214

Index 221