Robert Frost's first love letters

When he was 12 years old, Robert Frost began corresponding with a girl named Sabra Peabody, who is referred to by the nickname “Sabe.” He fell in love with Sabra, the younger sister of his friend Charles, in the summer of 1886. In the fall he started leaving love letters in her school desk. The letters have a childlike quality to them with looping letters and the words “Don’t show this” written in the top corner. The two exchanged a series of letters and, although we do not have her responses, we know that Frost read her “letter[s] with great pleasure.” With time their relationship faded, as Frost was never sure that Sabra felt the same way as he did. He married his high school girlfriend, Elinor Miriam White, in 1895.

 Sabra went on to marry Levi Woodbury. In 1946 she found the letters hidden in a compartment of her pencil box that had been stored in her family’s attic and subsequently donated the four letters to the Jones Library.

These letters can be viewed by coming to the Jones Library Special Collections and looking at our Robert Frost Collection. You can find more about Robert Forst online in our Amherst Muses exhibit.