My Dear Mother

A touching collection of correspondence from over 50 famous painters, writers, and musicians to their beloved mothers. "You want to know my grades: I have bad new for you," confesses young Baudelaire writing from boarding school. Long before F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, he was pressing for more pocket money in a letter from summer camp. And before Gustav Courbet became a master painter, he sold his school uniform and wrote, "If I am to be an exception to every rule in every way, I'm off to pursue my destiny." My Dear Mother is an irresistible treasury of more than a hundred letters from distinguished sons to their mothers, offering an intimate and unexpected glimpse in to the mind and heart of the artist. Whether it's to ask for socks or for solace, to sketch scenes of travel, to gossip or conspire, the letters in this collection reveal heated moments of creativity, struggle, and accomplishment alongside the business of everyday life, offering a sometimes comical, often touching portrait of the love between sons and mothers. Featuring letters from Elvis Presley, Ezra Pound, E.B. White, Paul Cezanne, Henry James, Henri de Touluse-Lautrec, Richard Wagner, Victor Hugo, Jean Cocteau, Tennessee Williams, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.