Far from home

Cicero to Terentia, 58 BC

Marcus Tullius Cicero · 29 April 58 BC · Brundisium · also Family

Exiled from Rome, Cicero writes to his wife Terentia that he is too grief-stricken to write often, and asks her to look after their children and decide whether to join him.

Dorothy Osborne to William Temple, 1653

Dorothy Osborne · 2 January 1653

Dorothy Osborne scolds William Temple for passing within a few miles of her home without stopping to visit, and explains why she cannot easily leave her ailing father to see him.

Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay, 1795

Mary Wollstonecraft · 1795

Traveling alone through Norway, Mary Wollstonecraft describes the loneliness of returning to a town where no one is waiting for her, and reflects on how rarely friendship survives once the novelty wears off.

Napoleon Bonaparte to Joséphine de Beauharnais, 1796

Napoleon Bonaparte · 14 March 1796 · Chanceaux Post House · also Love

Days into his first campaign as an army commander, and only weeks after their wedding, Napoleon writes to his new wife Josephine that every moment away from her is unbearable.

Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning, 1815

Charles Lamb · 25 December 1815 · also Friendship

Lamb pretends that years have passed and that everyone Manning knew has died, as an elaborate joke to coax his friend home from China.

Heinrich Heine to J. H. Detmold, 1835

Heinrich Heine · 22 March 1835 · Paris

Living in political exile in Paris, Heine tells a friend in Germany how overwhelming his life there has become and asks him to write often with news from home.

Robert Louis Stevenson to Sidney Colvin, 1891

Robert Louis Stevenson · 5 September 1891 (?)

Living in Samoa, Stevenson tells his friend Sidney Colvin that a question about homesickness sent him a month deep into his grandfather's diaries, drafting a family history of Scottish lighthouse engineers, and admits that thinking of the Scottish coast is almost enough to make him weep.