I’m thrilled we’ll get to read John le Carré’s letters — but what can this dying art reveal?

They might become a valuable part of his legacy. John Le Carré achieved the rare combination of popular and critical acclaim over his long and glittering writing career. This is why his final contribution — a collected volume of previously unpublished letters from his childhood in the 1940s to his death in 2020 — has sent a thrill through the literary world. Ahead of their November 2022 release, Stephanie Merritt explores the resurgence in popularity of letter writing, our fascination with the illusion of eavesdropping that private correspondence provides, and the complicated truth that we might never truly know who the person was beyond the pages.