This book celebrates the power of handwritten letters. Remember those?

In 1897, a politician, lawyer and journalist called Patrick Glynn sat at a table at the NSW Legislative Assembly and wrote a love letter to a Miss Dynon.

It wasn’t a very romantic letter, perhaps because a fellow politician was pouring “a Niagara of figures” over his head as he wrote. He acknowledged that she knew very little of him. After rambling on a bit, he came to the point: “If you consent to marry me, Miss Dynon, you will for the sacrifice, deserve Heaven, and probably save me from somewhere else.”

That letter is one among millions held by the National Library of Australia, spanning some 200 years. The library has released a book, Postscript: Life, Love and Loss in Australian Letters, that contains a selection of the best of them, plus letters from contemporary Australians who the library commissioned to write their own messages to recipients of their choosing.

It’s a fascinating collection, covering everything from everyday trivia to the most profound emotions, and reminding us that those emotions can reside in everyday trivia. As the preface points out, letters have a unique power, bridging distance to inform the recipient that the sender is thinking of them. They are carefully composed over time, rather than dashed off as an email or a text.

There are famous names here (Henry Lawson drying out at Coolac, asking his publisher to send him stationery, nibs, stamps and blotting paper; Jane Austen fretting over buying the wrong kind of lace). But some of the best letters are from people you’ve probably never heard of. A 17-year-old Chinese lad, John Ian Wing, wrote to the Games committee of the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, asking them to consider a closing ceremony where the athletes didn’t march for their countries but instead walked casually around the arena, mingling races and nations. That idea took hold, and it’s been done ever since.

Barbara Blackman, writer and widow of the artist Charles Blackman, didn’t hold back when she wrote to her friend, the poet Judith Wright, on the occasion of the death of historian Manning Clark in 1991. “My God, Judith, we have to be brave to go on being human to the end,” she wrote. “Painful as old age is … it is still a marvellously illuminated landscape of the soul.” Manning Clark thought there were four things that made life tolerable: art, religion, alcohol and love. Blackman added a fifth: nature.

Kylie Tennant was similarly frank when writing to her friend and fellow writer Patrick White, referencing Dylan Thomas’ famous poem. “It is no use telling you not to rage against the dying of the light because it better becomes you, I suppose, to do so.”

The contemporary letters are often very touching. Novelist Michael Winkler is stunned by the realisation he has never written a letter to his sons, so he makes up for lost time with affection and wry humour, sharing bits of wisdom he has gleaned, some important memories, and his own humility. “Time will tumble on. We can only try to shed a bit of light along the way.”

The poet David Brooks writes to his mother 54 years after she died. He remembers how sad and anguished she looked, which he never understood, and shares his research into an often grim family history. “Murder, then, and near-murder, alarming violence. And, I think we have to assume, grief, a lot of grief, repressed, un-uttered, unprocessed.”

In happier news, Patrick Glynn’s rambling love letter worked. He and Abigail Dynon were married less than a week after he sent it.

Janesullivan.sullivan9@gmail.com

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