Two of my favorite books, Letters from a Stoic and Old Gorgon Graham: Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, are made up of private correspondences that weren’t intended to be public. It’s an incredibly influential form of writing. For instance, the poet John Keats most important concept was never published – just mentioned briefly in a personal letter.

I wonder when someone will publish the first book of private emails between two notable figures. The medium has been in use for 20 solid years now – surely enough writers, public intellectuals or entrepreneurs gone back and forth over interesting topics by now. Plus, the best books in this genre tend to be from people whose career was cut short, making people more willing to consider additional sources of material.

Does anyone know of a book like this? I’m not talking about collections of forwarded chain emails, which are somewhat common. If there isn’t one already, I can’t imagine we’ll have to wait too long for it.