Fan Mail, Leonard Bernstein Collection, Library of Congress

When the nine-year-old Susan Knell wrote to Leonard Bernstein in March 1962 from her family home in Ossining, New York, she had very little — if any — concept of ‘the archive’. Nor were posterity or history-making remotely in her mind. The second child of highly educated Jewish parents, she had been studying the piano because ‘it was something that kids were expected to [do]’. 2 Exactly how the letter came about she does not recall. Most likely, one of her parents encouraged her to write to him: ‘They were very impressed by […] famous people who were accomplished’, she reflected. ‘And we were Jewish. And so I think there was that connection with Bernstein.’ Armed with a sheet of lined paper, torn from the pad in such a way that one of the five pre-punched holes was left ripped, she penned her missive. The careful formatting reflected her awareness of ‘good etiquette’, but was also at odds with the childish scrawl, an incongruity suggestive of children’s tendency to do things ‘correctly’, up to a point. Once posted, the letter was sooner or later forgotten by Susan — and likewise was the photograph reportedly sent by return, which she has no memory of ever receiving. 3