Andrew Lang, a Scottish polymath who lived from 1844 to 1912, wrote Letters to Dead Authors. I like the idea of the book, rather than the book itself.
Lang wrote 22 letters to authors he admired. He wrote to English contemporaries such as Charles Dickens, and to ancient Greeks such as Theocritus.
Lang had a remarkable mind. Talking back to the authors that most influenced him was a way of leaving a record of that mind, of giving a future generation an idea of what it must have been like to have been living and thinking in an earlier day.
The project started as a series of essays for St. James Gazette. Lang’s essays tended to run 2,500 to 3,000 words, I’d say, guessing rather than counting. I’d have preferred shorter.
What I don’t like about the book: Lang wrote his letters mimicking the style of the writer. He’s got Herodotus’s quirks down cold. It’s amusing, but not for long. I’d prefer to hear a reader talking back in his own voice.
Many times, I have wished my best friends would a write book such as this, a book that shows what a mind is like.
If you’re a writer — and aren’t we all? — maybe you should take a stab at it.
• Source: Andrew Lang, Letters to Dead Authors; London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1886. The Public Doman Review has a copy here:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/letters-to-dead-authors-1886/
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