Letter from Fryderyk Chopin to his family in Warsaw – ‘Szafarnia Courier’

From Szafarnia, where he spent the summer holidays at the family home of his good friend Dominik Dziewanowski, the teenage composer sent letters to his family styled on the Warsaw Courier. He describes details of his sojourn in a witty journalistic style: ‘On the 25th a Drake, stealing furtively out of the henhouse very early in the morning, drowned itself. The reasons for this suicide have yet to be established, as the family does not wish to talk. The Cow is much healthier and no one doubts in her complete recovery.’