letters

After Columbus wrote the letter in 1493, it was reprinted in Latin and circulated across Europe. Several copies have resurfaced in the U.S., including this one stolen from Venice in the 1980s.

A stolen Christopher Columbus letter found in Delaware returns to Italy decades later

2:56pm July 21, 2023

by Rachel Treisman

A rare copy of a letter from Columbus to Spain's royals detailing his voyage vanished from a Venice museum in the 1980s. U.S. authorities have repatriated it to Rome after a yearslong investigation.

An engraving by W.T. Fry (based on a painting) of Mary Stuart, also known as Mary Queen of Scots, circa 1587. An international trio of codebreakers discovered and decrypted letters she wrote during her years in captivity in England.

3 amateur codebreakers set out to decrypt old letters. They uncovered royal history

12:45pm February 10, 2023

by Rachel Treisman

Cryptologists found and decoded over 50 long-lost letters that Mary, Queen of Scots wrote during her time in captivity. A historian calls them the most important new findings about her in 100 years.

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Morning Edition asked listeners to submit poems in the form of letters to anyone of their choice. The result is this community poem titled "Love, Me."

Arts

'Love, Me' is a community poem crowdsourced from hundreds of letters

2:21pm July 28, 2022

by Rachel Martin

Morning Edition asked readers to submit poems in the form of letters, addressed to anyone. NPR poet-in-residence Kwame Alexander drew from the more than 600 responses to create a community poem.

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Carolina Curious: What's the meaning behind those letters on older brick chimneys?

4:10pm July 21, 2022

by Keri Brown

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Steve and Neiva MagaÃ±a's baby is now 8 months old. Steve has still not met his son in person.

National

When The Pandemic Closed Prisons To Visitors Loved Ones Picked Up Pen And Paper

8:19am March 13, 2021

by Ninna Gaensler-Debs

In the year since the pandemic caused most prisons to shut their gates to visitors, people have not been able to see their incarcerated friends and family. So, some turned to letter writing.

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A computer-generated unfolding sequence of sealed letter DB-1538. New research describes how "virtual unfolding" was used to read the contents of sealed letter packets from 17th century Europe without physically opening them.

Science

Reading A Letter That's Been Sealed For More Than 300 Years — Without Opening It

4:30pm March 02, 2021

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

A signed, sealed but not delivered letter from 1697 has finally been read with the help of a high-tech scan that looked inside without breaking its seal.

Letters submitted to the "Dear Stranger" project sponsored by Oregon Humanities.

Arts

'Dear Stranger': Connecting People 1 Letter At A Time

8:50pm April 11, 2020

by Martha Ann Overland

As the coronavirus forces people to keep their distance, a humanities program in Oregon brings residents together in an old-fashioned way.

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How much ink goes into a letter might be connected with it's sound, a new study suggests.

Science

Do Letters Show You How They Sound?

11:43am September 22, 2017

by Alva Noë

It is a principle of most modern thought about language that the relation between signs and meanings is arbitrary. But a new study finds a connection between sounds and ink on "paper," says Alva Noë.