According to NPR, by 1990 the city of Verona, Italy, was receiving over 6,000 letters to Juliet Capulet each year. This fact has been celebrated in a book and movie, both titled “Letters to Juliet,” so the outline of the story is well-known: Lovers who are in the middle of difficult plights or terrible loneliness write letters, detailed letters, about their storm-tossed affairs to Shakespeare’s fictional heroine. Only she, many begin, the ghost of a character who never breathed a human breath, only she can possibly understand and empathize.

Verona has a staff of volunteers who read and sometimes reply to the letters. (“Letters from Juliet” might be a more interesting title.) They call themselves “The Juliet Club,” and it only became an official office around 1990, but people have been writing letters to poor dead (never lived) Juliet for centuries. (Here is the address: Club di Giulietta, via Galilei 3-37133, Verona, ITALY.) Verona enjoys portraying itself as the hometown of Romeo and Juliet and even has a “Romeo and Juliet tour.” (Valentine’s Day is especially important.) Shakespeare certainly did more for Verona’s economy than he did for Denmark’s.
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