20 Secret Love-Letter Tricks Used Before Texting

Using an X to represent a kiss in a letter appeared in print in the 1878 novel Seaforth by British novelist Florence Montgomery. And while some linguists have speculated that the symbol originated from the medieval tradition of kissing a cross when signing a legal document, it’s not clear that there is an unbroken connection between the two. During WWII, sweethearts would also leave lipstick kisses on envelopes and letters, making the idea of sending a kiss through the mail much more literal.

Not just a science class trick, hidden writing was a practical form of security. Letters written with invisible ink made from liquids such as lemon juice or milk would dry invisible and only turn golden-brown when held carefully over heat. This allowed lovers to hide private messages between the lines of an otherwise ordinary letter, invisible to anyone who didn’t know to look for them.

Before 1840, postal costs in Britain were based on the number of sheets of paper instead of total weight, so people got around this by writing horizontally, then turning the page 90 degrees and writing over the first message in the perpendicular direction. This practice was known as cross-writing, and despite how chaotic the finished page looks, you can still decipher these crosshatched letters fairly easily. This became unnecessary after 1840, when Britain introduced the Penny Post, a postal reform that allowed letters to be sent for a standard low rate based on weight rather than the number of sheets.

Although it might seem morbid today because of its association with Victorian mourning jewelry, tying a strand of hair with letters was originally a romantic gesture. Couples would exchange a lock of hair as a token of their engagement, and the fact that hair endures made it a lasting representative of the other half.

During WWII, soldiers and sweethearts would write acronyms on the flaps of envelopes, like S.W.A.L.K. for “Sealed With A Loving Kiss” and I.T.A.L.Y. for “I Trust And Love You.” The acronyms were not created or enforced by military commanders, but spread organically from person to person as a means of circumventing censorship and the physical confines of envelopes. Romance, it seems, has always been good at finding extra space.

A billet-doux was simply a short love letter or love note, sometimes creased into a geometric shape and left for a lover. No stamps, postmarks, or long waiting times. A billet-doux could be a cheap and discreet form of communication, especially for couples living nearby or those watched closely by family.

Popularized by postcard publishers and lovers during the early 20th-century Edwardian postcard boom, the stamp language was used to conceal messages by positioning the stamp at a slight angle or even turning it upside down in the corner (an inverted stamp supposedly signified love). There was no stamp language rulebook: publishers and different places assigned different meanings, so it was necessary to check the guide that corresponded with the card. Getting the angle right was only half the problem; your sweetheart also needed the same cheat sheet.

When a suitor gave someone a book, he didn’t necessarily have to formulate all his sentiments himself; he could just write on a blank page—called a flyleaf—at the beginning or end of the book, and sometimes underline passages of poetry that suitably conveyed his feelings. So a book could be both a gift and a thing to reread for years to come.

From the 1600s onward, English suitors pledged their affection by smoothing a silver coin, engraving their initials, or bending it in half with their hands. The bent coin symbolized an unbreakable commitment between two people, and some of these tokens were kept in letter pouches while others were worn, kept private, and never discussed in public.

Before photographs, a sender might scent their stationery with a perfumed oil or sprinkle it with perfume before folding it. The gesture was simple, inexpensive even. And yet the fold would contain a scent, a smell that belonged only to one person. An association that provided an intimacy that photography could never quite match.

An 1879 etiquette manual by George Carroll explained some of the meanings attached to calling cards, small cards bearing a visitor’s name that were left at someone’s home. A folded top-right corner indicated that the visitor had come in person instead of sending a servant, while a folded top-left corner indicated a message of congratulations. The book also says that suitors would sometimes write notes on the back.

From the 1680s through the early 1900s, guidebooks called Complete Letter-Writers were bestsellers. These manuals provided pre-written templates for love letters, marriage proposals, and responses to suitors. Instead of winging it, people embraced this system of courtship, as it was respectable and even necessary to avoid any faux pas in the complex realm of romantic correspondence. So yes, copying a romantic message from a template has a much longer history than the internet.

Scherenschnitte is a decorative paper-cutting craft in which paper is cut into intricate designs. Before factory-made, embossed lace paper was widely available, suitors would cut intricate latticed borders for letters. You can even find patterns pinpricked along the edges of the paper.

Between the mid-1600s and the 1800s, suitors would sometimes write acrostic poems, in which the first letter of each line spelled the beloved’s name as it ran down the left-hand margin. They couldn’t be scribbled off the top of the head. The difficulty, the apparent time invested in constructing one, was the point. You couldn’t exactly blame autocorrect if you misspelled your beloved’s name, either.

Between roughly 1650 and 1850, certain love letters used rebuses, replacing some words or sounds with pictures: an eye for “I,” a heart for “love,” etc. Since the writer and recipient had to know the same code, the letter became a game that could be deciphered by only two people. The heart symbol was doing some very familiar work long before we had an emoji keyboard.

Once courtship was completed and the correspondence was over, couples and their families often kept the courtship letters, organized them in a chronological fashion, and tied them together with a silk ribbon as a keepsake. These letters have been a valuable source of information for historians studying courtship customs.

Before photography gave couples an easier way to exchange pictures of themselves, wealthier couples might exchange miniature watercolor portraits painted on ivory, whereas everyday people might exchange silhouettes cut from black paper, all tucked into letters so they could keep an image of each other while apart. Different budgets, same desire to have your sweetheart’s face nearby.

For centuries, the standard color of sealing wax used to close letters and envelopes was red. In the 19th century, stationers began offering sealing wax in a variety of colors and, with sales (rather than strict rules) in mind, encouraged their use for love letters (pink or blue), wedding invitations (white), and mourning notices (black). Some couples established their own secret colors. Leave it to marketing to find its way into romance.

A “puzzle purse” was a love letter made from a single square of paper folded into an intricate set of panels, and the unfolding was the whole point. Between the 1780s and 1840s in Britain and North America, lovers created these gifts by folding the paper into a pinwheel of panels, each numbered so the recipient could unravel it in sequence to discover a love note. You had to work for the message, which probably made reaching the middle all the sweeter.

Beginning with an influential 1819 volume published under the name Charlotte de La Tour, a “language of flowers,” in which different flowers were assigned different symbolic meanings, took off in the Victorian era. Lovers pressed violets (faithfulness) and forget-me-nots (true remembrance) between the pages of letters, with the recipient consulting a guide to their secret meanings. Not surprisingly, competing publishers offered different interpretations. Nothing complicates a secret romantic code quite like discovering your sweetheart bought a different dictionary.

This content was created with the help of AI.