This book presents 22 thoroughly apocryphal letters from the authors who constitute a first library for so many young Americans: Herman Melville, Emilio Salgari, Hans Christian Andersen, Louisa May Alcott, J. M. Barrie, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carlo Collodi, Lewis Carroll, Jean Webster, Johanna Spyri, Jonathan Swift, the Brothers Grimm, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe and J. D. Salinger.

These letters are irreverently inventive – without denying themselves the occasional hidden quotation, or trying to erase the ties to the biographical, historic and social circumstances surrounding them. María Negroni offers us an intimate vision of a slice of these great writers’ lives. Inspired by a thoughtful pen and based on a meticulously woven framework, each letter is a fascinating journey to a unique destiny, beyond time and space; yet to different degrees, all of the writer paid the often excessive price of literary activity that sprung from their very soul. Maria Negroni writes with panache, and has found a tone and rhythm for each one. She gets the authors to express themselves in ways that can be totally extravagant, desperate or moving.

The book is illustrated by Jean-François Martin and has been designed by Paprika.

A wonderfully creative book nourished by a powerful imagination and brimming with 22 unforgettable fates.