Barbara Heller and the joys of fictional correspondence.
Our final author for our Signed, Sealed, Delivered panel is Barbara Heller, who has brilliantly taken her own obsession with letters in literature to expand some beloved classics into new dimensions.
Barbara explains: “I was re-reading Pride and Prejudice for the gazillionth time, savoring my favorite passages in Mrs. Gardiner’s “long, kind, satisfactory” letter to Elizabeth, when a sudden desire to have that letter in my hand came over me. To hold the very letter that Elizabeth Bennet once received - ink faded, paper yellowed - would be utterly satisfying. In truth, I wanted to possess the originals of all the letters in Pride and Prejudice. A vision of myself at a flea market, happening upon the letters, was so real that I experienced the twin electric thrills of discovery and possession. I became determined to transform reverie into reality.”
The result was a new edition of Jane Austen’s beloved novel, now complete with the letters which are referred to in the text, each one painstakingly researched and handwritten by an expert calligrapher. Some of the letters are in the original text; others Barbara had to write herself. It was such a success that she did the same thing for Little Women.
Barbara Heller was inspired to create the letters in Pride and Prejudice (Chronicle Books, 2020) and Little Women (Chronicle, fall 2021) by her own desire to hold those letters in her hands. Her career in film and television encompasses finding furnishings and props for many shows including The Americans and When They See Us; location managing films for Francis Coppola, Nancy Meyers, and Barbet Schroeder; and directing award-winning short films that have played at festivals around the world (Cannes, Berlin, Sundance). To satisfy her curiosity, Barbara reported on why hotels fold the end of the toilet paper into a point for NPR. She graduated from Brown University with a degree in English Literature and lives with her son in New York City. She is deep in the process of giving “the letter treatment” to Persuasion (Chronicle, fall 2022.)
