Very untruly yours

How to sign off

Historic New Orleans Collection

For some time now, I’ve been assembling a long list of sign-offs deserving of a wider audience—a tangle of valediction too interesting to hog—and today is the day I begin unleashing them on you. Some are elegant (Gellhorn), some are sad (Battersby), some are painfully relatable (Kubrick), and some are just nuts (Dali, what on earth?). But literally all are preferable to the dull, lazily placed sign-offs the vast majority of us slap beneath letters and emails each day without a care in the world. Next time you send someone a message, please consider using one of these instead.

If you know of any other corkers, let me know by leaving a comment below. And if you haven’t already, please consider becoming a paid subscriber so I can spend even more time bossily telling you how not to close your correspondence.

Patronisingly yours,
Shaun

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Am Red beans and ricely yours,
Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong
Letter to Betty Jane Holder
9th February 1952

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With my weak organs I am very fond of you.
L.

Lydia Lopokova 
Letter to John Keynes
1924

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Annoyed and depressed but lovingly, 
S.

Stanley Kubrick
Letter to Roger Caras
July 1965

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Yours till the ship sinks,
Norman

Royal Navy gunner Norman Battersby
Letter to his family
Dunkirk, 1940

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Love Virginia (imperative)
Love Virginia (absolute)
Love? Virginia? (interrogative)
Mine was the 1st.
Virginia

Virginia Woolf
Letter to Vita Sackville-West
7th January 1928

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Love and red hot kisses from top to derrière,
Noelie-poelie

Noël Coward
Letter to Alexander Woollcott
6th February 1936 

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Thank you, and I hope you choke.
Very untruly yours.

An unhappy Beatles fan
Letter of complaint to Nike, Inc.
30th March 1987

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Yours in pleasure, 
John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck 
Letter to Professor and Mrs. Eugène Vinaver
20th July 1957

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Tinkety tonk old fruit, & down with the Nazis 
always your loving
Peter*

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
Letter to her niece, Elizabeth Elphinstone
7th February 1941

*As children, the Elphinstones had been unable to pronounce 'Elizabeth,' so naturally they called her 'Peter' instead. The name stuck.

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Always Your Stinking Old Friend
Scott

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Letter to Ernest Hemingway
9th September 1929

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I tip my hat and make you a bow. 
With faithful feelings, 
Zora

Zora Neale Hurston
Letter to Helga Eason
14th February 1950

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Love, light and peace,
Spike

Spike Milligan
Letter to George Harrison
6th December 1983

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Love, haste, 
Andy

E. B. White 
Letter to Dorothy Hayes
10th December 1969

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Vacationally yours—
Sylvia

Sylvia Plath 
Letter to Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff
On holiday, 15th December 1951

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Farewell, Sir, a kiss on the palm tree from your
Rotting Donkey

Salvador Dali
Letter to Federico García Lorca
1927

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Darling, a loving hand across several seas,
Martha

Martha Gellhorn
Letter to William Walton
23rd November 1963

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Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Mark Twain

Mark Twain
Letter to J. H. Todd
20th November 1905

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Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours.

Ludwig van Beethoven 
Letter to his "Immortal beloved"
6th July 1812

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Hastily, but 
Sincerely,
Langston

Langston Hughes
Letter to Richard Wright
29th February 1940

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With my love always and always and all-ways,
Your Tib

Sylvia Townsend Warner
Letter to Valentine Ackland
23rd June 1947

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Yours in prickly heat,
Papa

Ernest Hemingway
Letter to his son, Patrick
30th June 1939

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Ravaged love,
Rich

Richard Burton
Letter to Elizabeth Taylor
31st March 1973

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Irritably yours,
Dalton Trumbo

Dalton Trumbo 
Letter of complaint to LA Telephone Signal Company
8th November 8th 1948