bLet us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in the old-fashioned way I love you. You do not know me although you have seen me, smiled at me. I know you although not so well as I would like. I want to be there when your eyes flutter open in the morning, and you see me, and you smile. Surely this would be paradise enough. So I do declare myself to you now, with pen set to paper. I declare it again I love you.b p Is there any communication more potent than the love letter Is there any charge greater than seeing those words on paper The editors of this collection decided to ask some of the most important writers of our time to compose a fictional love letter - breathing new life into a forgotten custom, and affording words themselves the power of seduction that they richly deserve. The result is an iridescent picture of what love looks like in the twenty-first century a collage of methods and moods. Each letter is radically different from the others