Dear Valentine: A Brief History of Great Love Letters

For as long as people could write, it seems, the more romantic and less self-conscious among us have been penning love letters. But in the era of ephemeral digital communication, the visceral pleasure of a handwritten love letter is largely lost. What school-age kid can even read cursive anymore?

This Valentine’s Day, take a bit of inspiration from these few famous love letters and pen your sweetie a love missive. You can even add a “Do you like me? Check yes or no” if you’re feeling self-conscious about it.

1. Abelard and Héloïse: Love Letters Spell Trouble
2. Ludwig van Beethoven: Love Letters to a Mystery Woman
3. Charles Darwin: The Evolution of Love
4. Presidential Love Letters

Abelard and Héloïse: Love Letters Spell Trouble

Tales of thwarted love capture the human imagination like nothing else, so it's not surprising that the early 12th century story of Pierre Abelard and Héloïse has endured for generations.

Abelard was in his early thirties and one of the most promising philosophers and teachers in medieval Paris; young Héloïse was the clever and academic live-in niece of a respected clergyman, Canon Fulbert. Claiming the upkeep of a home and the commute to Paris was too onerous, Abelard appealed to Fulbert: In exchange for room and board, he'd tutor bright Héloïse. Some claim that Abelard knew exactly what he was doing by securing a room with the canon, but whether it was fate or the crafty work of a besotted suitor, it worked. Abelard and Héloïse soon fell in love and, after a brief period of intense “study” sessions, Héloïse became pregnant. They married in secret and for a short time, it looked like things were going to turn out OK for the pair. But that wouldn't make it a tragedy: With wounded pride and a vengeful heart, Canon Fulbert hired some men to find Abelard and castrate him.

With Abelard maimed and her child entrusted to the care of her family, Héloïse was given little choice but to take the vows; she later became prioress of her abbey, while Abelard’s career as a philosopher progressed.

Abelard seems to have turned away from sensual love after the incident, but Héloïse continued to pour her romantic love for him into letters:

“But if I lose you, what is left to hope for? What reason for continuing on the pilgrimage of life, for which I have no support but you and none in you except the knowledge that you are alive, now that I am forbidden all other pleasures in you and denied even the joy of your presence which from time to time could restore me to myself?”

In the more than 800 years since their deaths, their story, now the stuff of paintings and poetry, has cemented their place in the pantheon of great lovers. Their letters also remain—although there is some scholarly debate as to whether the two even wrote them. The real question is, as the couple has already passed into legend, does it matter?

Ludwig van Beethoven: Love Letters to a Mystery Woman

Though Ludwig van Beethoven never married, he fell in love deeply and often, usually with women who were unattainable due to social mores or because they were already married. The composer wrote a number of love letters, but three stand out—the “Immortal Beloved” letters.

In the first, dated the morning of Monday, July 6, Beethoven writes, “Love demands everything and is quite right, so it is for me with you, for you with me.” In the second, dated that evening, he “weeps” at the thought that the mail only goes out on Monday and Thursdays early in the morning—because he has already missed the first, his beloved won't receive word from him until Saturday.

The next day, he writes, “I can only live, either altogether with you or not all. Your love made me the happiest and the unhappiest at the same time.” He ends the last letter:

“Oh, go on loving me—never doubt the faithfullest heart
Of your beloved
L
Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours.”

Attempts to conclusively determine the identity of his “Immortal Beloved” have generally come to naught, although some say the most likely candidate is Antonie Bretano, a Viennese woman who, true to Beethoven’s form, was already married to a Frankfurt merchant. Others say she was Josephine von Brunsvik, an unhappily married Hungarian aristocrat who’d formed an attachment to Beethoven some years earlier. Still others claim it was the Countess Julia Guicciardi, to whom he’d dedicated his gorgeous “Moonlight Sonata.”

But no one believes the version put forward by Hollywood director Bernard Rose, in his 1994 Beethoven biopic starring Gary Oldman and Isabella Rossellini: That the Immortal Beloved was actually Johanna Reiss, the wife of Beethoven’s brother and a woman who, outside the make-believe world, Beethoven actually hated.

Charles Darwin: The Evolution of Love

When most people think of Charles Darwin, they don't usually think romance—the author of On the Origin of the Species is far more well known for his theory of evolution than for his reputation as a lover.

It’s true that Darwin wasn't exactly sentimental. In 1838, seven years after his momentous voyage around Tierra del Fuego on the Beagle—a trip that planted the seeds of what would become his master work—the scientist decided he'd like to get married.

Darwin came to this decision after drawing up a list of pros and cons. Under marry, he wrote, “constant companion” and “better than a dog anyhow.” Under not marry, he wrote, “conversation with clever men at clubs.”

Ultimately, the pros outweighed the cons and he became engaged to his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood.

His love letters aren't sappy, but they do reflect his honest love for Emma and the genuine excitement he felt at his impending nuptials. “How I do hope you shall be happy as I know I shall be,” he wrote, just days before their wedding. “My own dearest Emma, I earnestly pray, you may never regret the great, and I will add very good, deed you are to perform on the Tuesday: my own dear future wife, God bless you!”

The couple had 10 children together and for the most part, their marriage was quite happy; even so, Emma, a devout Christian, worried desperately about what effect Darwin’s scientific theories would have on his immortal soul and the souls of people who agreed with him.

Presidential Love Letters

Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States and the man who led America through the First World War (though historians have reevaluated his reputation in recent years). He was also a prolific love letter writer.

While wooing Edith Bolling, Wilson penned a series of love letters, some signed “Tiger” (Wilson was a Princeton alum, but this was before the university took on the tiger as its mascot.) In one, Wilson wrote, “You are more wonderful and lovely in my eyes than you ever were before; and my pride and joy and gratitude that you should love me with such a perfect love are beyond all expression, except in some great poem which I cannot write.” In another, he pines, “Please go to ride with us this evening, precious little girl, so that I can whisper something in your ear—something of my happiness and love, and accept this, in the meantime, as a piece out of my very heart, which is all yours but cannot be sent as I wish to send it by letter.”

Wilson certainly isn’t the only American president to turn a bit mushy with a pen—or feather quill—in hand. In President Harry Truman’s letters to Bess Wallace before they were married, he writes, “I suppose that I am too crazy about you anyway. Every time I see you I get more so if it is possible. I know I haven't any right to but there are certain things that can't be helped and that is one of them. I wouldn't help it if I could you know.”

President Ronald Reagan wrote to Nancy Reagan after 31 years of marriage, “I more than love you, I'm not whole without you. You are life itself to me. When you are gone I'm waiting for you to return so I can start living again.” Their correspondence was published in the 2002 book I Love You, Ronnie: The Letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan.

Of course, some of the most famous presidential love letters were between John Adams and his wife, Abigail. While debating public policy and the direction of American independence, the two exchanged sweet, affectionate, silly, and often deeply affecting endearments. “Dear Miss Saucy,” he writes, “I hereby order you to give me as many kisses and as many hours of your company as I shall please to demand, and charge them to my account.”

Read More Stories About Valentine’s Day:

A version of this story was published in 2010; it has been updated for 2025.