Dirty (and sometimes Douchey) Love Letters from Authors You Thought You Knew

We thought we were done with all that hearts and flowers stuff yesterday, but The Huffington Post had other ideas. Today they deliver surprisingly nasty love letters from authors. Some of these are sexy, some nasty dirty and one, from Benjamin Franklin to Madame Brillon, is just plain douchey.

“What a difference, my dear friend, between you and me!” Franklin writes. “You find innumerable faults with me, whereas I see only one fault in you (but perhaps that is the fault of my glasses). I mean this kind of avarice which leads you to seek monopoly on all my affection, and not allow me any for the agreeable ladies of your country.”

See? Douchey, right? And it gets worse.

For January Magazine, James Joyce’s letter is unquotable (so make sure you sneak a peak), but HuffPo sums it up: “The king of the dirty love letter, this is only one of Joyce's many graphic missives to his wife. What can we say? The man was into flatulence.” And other stuff, too.

Franz Kafka (pictured above), on the other hand, was unsurprisingly moved by metaphor: “Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire.”

You can read the piece here, but be prepared to blush.

And if you liked that, you might just dig this 2010 piece from Cracked called “6 Famous Geniuses You Didn’t Know Were Perverts.”