The most epic collection ever of handwritten letters and notes Eight-year-old John James wrote to the president with health advice. Godfather author, Mario Puzo, writes to Hollywood legend, Marlon Brando, suggesting he take the lead role. THE letter took them almost four years to write. Four years after a bomb exploded on Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland the lives of a family on one of the farms below changed forever. The explosion rained debris and bodies on the sleepy little town of Lockerbie, just 30kms from the border with England. Frank Ciulla, a 45-year-old New Jersey man travelling home to his childhood sweetheart and their three children for Christmas, fell out of the sky 11kms away from the main crash site onto a small sheep grazing farm owned by Hugh and Margaret Connell. The Connells found him among mail bags and wreckage and immediately connected. "Right away we seemed to love him," Hugh Connell said. "He looked so young," Margaret Connell said. "Dear Ciulla family, we were deeply affected when your dear one came to us from the night ... " - the haunting letter written to the family of plane crash victim, Frank Ciulla (above). In 1992, after the Ciullas had found the strength to visit Minsca Farm in Waterbeck and see the quiet spot where their husband and father had come to rest, the Connells finally penned this letter: My dears, Lou, Mary Lou and family, When your dear one came to us from the night, it was so unbelievable, haunting and desperately sad. Frank was a young man with a name but connected to nobody. Now at last we can match him with a loving family. We will get to know Frank through you. He was never just 'another victim'. For months we called him 'Our Boy'. When we found out his name, he was 'Our Frank'. Please believe me we were deeply affected by his coming to us. We will never forget our feelings seeing him there, a whole-bodied handsome man, the life gone out of him. We want you all to know you are welcome here whenever you come. The missive from Minsca farm is among the more touching in an epic collection of letters - many of them handwritten - in a new book, "Letters of Note. Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience. Edited by Shaun Usher and published by Canongate, the book is available in bookshops and from Allen and Unwin Australia. Several notes like this one from an unmarried, pregnant New York woman in 1874 begging a nunnery to take her child, were left with babies on a doorstop. Letters from the famous include the doomed Mary Queen of Scots who, just six hours before her public beheading in 1587, by order of her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, wrote to her brother, "Tonight, after dinner, I have been advised ... I am to be executed. There's serial killer Jack the Ripper's taunting note to the chairman of the vigilante committee searching for him, "Catch me if you can" and Elvis Presley's letter scrawled on an American Airlines flight to the US president, asking to join the FBI. Future Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, aged 14 years, writes to the US president asking for a $10 bill. Author Mario Puzo writes to Marlon Brando, saying "you're the only actor to play The Godfather." German genius Albert Einstein, writes to US president Roosevelt (mistakenly) warning him the Nazis have made an atomic bomb. There's a confessional from Zelda Fitzgerald to her husband F Scott, author of The Great Gatsby, saying he could have "run away with another woman, starved me, beat me, I would still want you, lover, lover, darling." Legendary wild west figure, Annie Oakley, writes to the US president in 1898 offering "50 lady sharpshooters" for the war effort. Correspondence from the infamous includes John Lennon's killer, Mark Chapman, writing to a memorabilia expert from prison asking how much the album Lennon signed hours before the shooting would be worth on the market. A man called Patrick Hitler - nephew of Adolf - writes in 1942, just a year after fleeing Nazi Germany, to Franklin D Roosevelt, asking if he can enlist with the US Army. Queen Elizabeth II sent her recipe for drop scones to the US president in 1960. Among the funny and poignant notes, are the schoolboy's letter to US President Richard Nixon in 1973, which says in part: "Dear President Nixon, I hear you were sick. Be a good boy and eat your vegetables. If you take your medicine and your shots, you'll be out in 8 days like I was. Love John W James III, 8 years old. In February, 1973, prisoner of war Fred Flom wrote to comedian Bob Hope who had entertained the troops: "I am a pilot shot down over North Vietnam on 8 August 1966. I have been held captive since that time, but will finally be released in three days. I want to thank you for all you have done ... you are truly a POW's friend. Six hours before she was beheaded on the order of her cousin, Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots writes in French to inform her brother. Among the authors of the 124 notes in the book are actress Katharine Hepburn, Italian painter and inventor, Leonardo da Vinci, writer Jack Kerouac, naturalist Charles Darwin and criminal Clyde Barrow, of Bonnie and Clyde fame, who are two years on the run shooting at people writes to vehicle manufacturer Henry Ford saying, "what a dandy car you make."