Nothing could be more spontaneous and ebullient than Chopin's letters. -- Books Perhaps no composer's letters are so kindred to his music, and reminiscent of the impression produced by it, as Chopin's are. -- The New York Times This superbly edited selection of nearly 300 of Chopin's letters, the first to be published in English, vividly reveals the composer as man and artist, and evokes the remarkable age -- Europe of the 1830s and 1840s -- he shared with an equally remarkable cast of characters, from Jenny Lind to Isabella II of Spain, from Queen Victoria to George Sand, from Heinrich Heine to Victor Hugo.