IS THIS THE GREATEST LOVE LETTER EVER?
Johnny Cash’s tender note to his wife tops a poll featuring the words of romance penned by some very famous people
CASH really is king. A love letter written by American country music legend Johnny Cash to his wife June on her 65th birthday in 1994 has been named as the greatest love letter of all time in a new poll, beating one written by Winston Churchill to his wife Clementine four years before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Winston Churchill to his wife Clementine, 1935
My darling Clemmie… you wrote some words very dear to me about my having enriched your life. I cannot tell you what pleasure this gave me because I always feel so overwhelmingly in your debt, if there can be accounts in love.
What it has been to me to live all these years in your heart and companionship no phrases can convey. Time passes swiftly but is it not joyous to see how great and growing is the treasure we have gathered together, amid the storms and stresses of so many eventful, and to millions, tragic and terrible years?
Churchill and his wife enjoyed 56 years of marriage ending with Winston’s death in 1965.
Poet John Keats to nextdoor neighbour Fanny Brawne, 1819
I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again. My life seems to stop there. I see no further… I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you… Love is my religion. I could die for that. I could die for you. My creed is love and you are its only tenet.
Brawne was engaged to marry Keats but the poet tragically succumbed to tuberculosis in 1821, aged just 25.
Author Ernest Hemingway to actress Marlene Dietrich, 1951
I can’t say every time I ever put my hands round you I felt that I was home. Nor too many things. But we were always cheerful and jokers together.
While Hemingway committed suicide in 1961 the woman he addressed as “Dearest Kraut” died in 1992 aged 90.
Napoleon Bonaparte to Josephine de Beauharnais, 1796
Since I left you I have been constantly depressed. My happiness is to be near you. Incessantly I live over in my memory your caresses, your tears, your affectionate solicitude. The charms of the incomparable Josephine kindle continually a burning and glowing flame in my heart.
Napoleon and Josephine married in March 1796. They divorced in 1810.
Actor Richard Burton to the actress Elizabeth Taylor, 1964
My blind eyes are desperately waiting for the sight of you. You don’t realise of course how fascinatingly beautiful you have always been and how strangely you have acquired an added and special and dangerous loveliness.
In 1964 Burton and Taylor married for the first time. They divorced in 1974 but remarried in 1975, divorcing again in 1976.
Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, 1527
I beg to know expressly your intention touching the love between us. Necessity compels me to obtain this answer having been more than a year wounded by the dart of love and not yet sure whether I shall fail or find a place in your affection.
Boleyn became the second of Henry’s six wives in 1533 but was executed in 1536.
Composer Ludwig van Beethoven to his ‘ Immortal Beloved’, 1812
I can only live either altogether with you or not at all… Oh God, why must one go away from what one loves so… Your love made me the happiest and unhappiest at the same time… Be calm – love me – today, yesterday. What longing in tears for you. You, my life, my all…
The identity of “Immortal Beloved” remains a mystery. Beethoven died in 1827 aged 56. He never married.
US president Gerald Ford to wife Betty after she was diagnosed with cancer in 1974
Dearest Mom, No written words can adequately express our deep, deep love. We know how great you are and we, the children and Dad, will try to be as strong as you. Our faith in you and God will sustain us. Our total love for you is everlasting. We will be at your side with our love for a wonderful Mom. xxxx Jerry
Betty recovered from cancer and died at the age of 93 in 2011. Her husband died in 2006, also aged 93.
Rock legend Jimi Hendrix to an unknown girlfriend, undated
Little girl… happiness is within you… so unlock the chains from your heart and let yourself grow like the sweet flower you are. I know the answer. Just spread your wings and set yourself FREE. Love to you forever.