Book Lets Readers See Others’ Love Letters

What could be more romantic than a Valentine’s Day love letter?

How about a book full of them?

OK, so none of the romantic sentiments expressed in “Love Letters” (Marlowe, $19.95) was written for you. But you can read what such well-knowns as Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Keats and Isadora Duncan wrote to their beloveds in facsimiles of 10 letters, with folds and handwriting re-created from the originals, some nestled within envelopes bearing authentic-looking seals.

For those who are not into reading other people’s mail, there are other recent books that get to the heart of Cupid’s holiday.

In what could pass for Cupid’s family album, “Cherubs: Angels of Love” (Bullfinch, $29.95) has 125 color reproductions of cherubs in art from the Renaissance and Victorian eras, accompanied by Alexander Nagel’s text. The book features a four-page gatefold spread, pop-up page, translucent acetate overlays and a valentine card in an envelope.

In a petite hardcover called “Sweet Talk” (Simon & Schuster, $17), author Susan Ferraro takes readers on a literary tour of the language of love, stopping at such points of interest as terms of endearment; love letters; romantic quotes from Shakespeare, Robert Browning and pop music; and “The Alphabet of Love,” beginning with “angel” and ending in “zzzzzzz, the universal snore … what a loved one is not.”

If one picture is worth a thousand words, “Life & Love: A Book of Embraces” (Little, Brown, $14.95) is worth 87,000 words. This hardcover features 87 photos, some in color, from the pages and archives of Life magazine that capture love in many forms - a soldier’s farewell kiss for a young woman at New York’s Penn Station in 1943, a group hug among entertainer Madonna and her seven siblings, and a warm embrace between a couple married 81 years.

Those still waiting for real love to come along might find some comfort in the fictional variety.

Rosamunde Pilcher introduces “Love Stories” (St. Martin’s, $20), a hardcover collection of classic and contemporary tales of the heart, with contributions by Guy de Maupassant, Colette, John Updike, Edith Wharton and Pilcher herself.

For the paperback “The Literary Lover” (Penguin, $12.50), editor Larry Dark has chosen 20 short fictional pieces about romance and passion, including “The Lover” by Alice Walker, “The Love Object” by Edna O’Brien and “The Habit of Loving” by Doris Lessing.