I emailed a certain scholar of Old English language and history (also a prof at an Ivy League school) and had a pretty terrible experience.

I first sent a brief email saying that I was an undergrad interested in studying Old English, and I asked if it would be alright if I sent them some basic questions about the field.

They said ok, and I was really excited and spent a lot of time thinking of some simple, straightforward questions about the current state of Old English scholarship, who were some of the main historians in that field, what steps should I take if I was interested in that field, etc. It was a very short list of about 5 or 6 questions that probably would have taken less than 10 minutes to answer.

The response I got was a weird, paranoid email accusing me of being a marketer and ridiculing me for asking inane questions.

It wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't already agreed to answer my questions. It was pretty disappointing.

This may not be exactly what you're looking to hear about, but I've found that many major scholars in the field of First World War studies are reasonably active on Twitter. It's a medium that demands a certain amount of brazenness and familiarity even with those whom you've never met, and those who make regular use of it seem to expect that. Consequently, I've had plenty of interesting chats with people in different countries whose books line my shelf even as I type this. It's fantastic.

This seems to be true in many other fields as well, for what it's worth, and I heartily encourage anyone who's involved in academic history to get a Twitter account and see what (and who) is out there.

I wrote to Farhad Daftary while I was working on my thesis of "The Assassins." I got a response from him telling me he would love to read my work (holy crap...for real?) and then he shared with me where to find more sources for my Master's Thesis.

It was pretty awesome.

Most of our "celebrity historian" AMAs have been "cold" emails actually, including Benerson Little and James McPherson. So there's been some remarkable success there!

My experience was in a graduate level seminars where grad students would email the author of the books a series of questions about the book being discussed this week. Overall, it was a positive experience and helped illuminate issues about the books and their genesis. For example, Joachim Schlör divulged to us the rationale behind including London in his monograph Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London 1840-1930. Another grad student wrote to Andrew Zimmerman, author of the well-received Alabama in Africa, asking for his insights into comparative genocide studies.

My advice is that the best responders tend to be academic historians working inside an institution. Often their email is a work email that they answer personally. Thanks are appreciated, but also if you have (reasonable) questions that need clarification (genesis of the book, research used, etc) or advice on what to read next, it gives the historian something to respond to. More popular historians or academic superstars like Simon Schama are less likely to respond, but you might want to try an email via the publisher.

I read an article on methodology in global history and the future of imperial histories I rather liked, and when it became apparent my committee wouldn't work together anymore, I wrote to him with a CV asking him for advice on how to proceed. He wrote back a two-page single-spaced letter basically telling me to come visit because I articulated issues that he wanted students who cared about. After visiting, and really enjoying the faculty and students, I applied and got in, and that's where I did my PhD.

On the other hand, I had another renowned scholar of empire pick on me for using phonetically correct transliterations for Arabic names in my letter, and another (at an Ivy League school) dismissively say "yeah, whatever, I still supervise those things, and hey I'm writing this from an airplane over the Andes!" Didn't go there.

All of these (mine and theirs) were hardcopy letters, which was unusual even way back in 1999. Nobody accused me of pulling a scam, because I made certain they could figure out who I was really easily.

I think the only fanmail I ever wrote was when I was 15 and I wrote to an early music performing group, asking them about their familiarity with New Testament Greek and church Latin. They said that yes, they have a rough understanding of these languages, which helps with their interpretations of the text. I may have asked other questions and gotten more answers, but I don't remember. What really mattered was that they were very nice about it, and very encouraging (I told them my age in the email).

Not strictly historians in the sense of history professors, or anything, but their response was really exciting for adolescent me. It helped to make early music scholarship and performance seem much more accessible to someone like me.

Emailed one historian, to tell him I quite enjoyed his book and highlighted one quote in particular that spoke to me. He wrote back, said it was encouraging that someone had taken to heart his words and work, and thanked me for my support. I wasn't looking to open dialogue, so I left it at that, but there ya go!

When I was thinking of going to grad school I wrote to James Hansen (First Man and Forever Young, astronaut bios) when he was still at Auburn. He answered all my questions about their program and then followed up with a phone call later in which we talked about Buzz Aldrin and Breaking Bad.

I also emailed Anne Secord, a historian of Victorian science, after we read her article about working class botany clubs that met in pubs, for much the same reason as OP. She was very gracious and apologized for taking so long to get back to me.

One of our cohort emailed Steven Shapin and even though he's like the most famous working historian of science, he got right back to my friend and answered his questions in detail.

I think most scholars working in institutions see it as part of their job (and if they don't, they really should IMO).

I wrote to William Caferro once about his book on John Hawkwood. Never got a reply. That said, if he is typical, then finding contact info is easy. A recent book probably contains accurate information about his academic affiliation which can be confirmed.with Google. Then, a quick visit to the university's faculty page should have an email.

I wrote to Antony Beevor with a correction to an error I found in his book on the Second World War (he implied that the draft began in the US in the late summer of 1941). I couldn't find a direct email address though, so sent it to to the contact on his website. Never heard back.

Yes. I do all the time on this subreddit. :)

I met one of my favorite historians, who's an authority on the history of the U.S. & Soviet space programs -- who has worked both for NASA and the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum, since as luck would have it, he was leading a special tour of the Natl. Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, for a group I was part of. I told him I was a big fan of his work, and he was genuinely appreciative, I think.

I won't lie -- it was a bit of a rockstar moment for me, and this was on a day that I also met 3 astronauts.

I tried writing to James Belich once in the name of suggesting that revisionist NZ history is pretty poorly presented and taught (his teachings are presented with very little ambiguity in modern NZ). I asked him if he believed that history can ever really be that one-sided, but he never got back to me.

I wrote Catherine Merrindale a few times. She always got back quickly and was very sweet, even when answering questions.

You guys have been immensely helpful. I figure, it can't hurt, right? I'm going to try sending something to Oxford to see if I can get it across Sir Horne's desk, and maybe Jonathan Stamp (I'm a big [HBO's] Rome fan, and he had such excellent commentary throughout), though the latter might take some work, at a cursory glance to find him. Again, thanks for the advice. . . I guess I'll try my old twitter account that I only created to see what all the fuss was about and haven't checked in ages.

I wrote to one emeritus professor who specialized in agriculture history with a pretty specific question about sources, and he went through his own library, found a book from the 1920s that had what I wanted, and then mailed (internationally!) me photocopies of relevant pages.

Another historian I like I met at a conference, and then followed up with emails; he's since served on a panel I put together, got me onto one of his panels as comment (with some VERY big names, I'm kind of stunned to be sharing the stage with these people), and read several drafts of dissertation chapters.

So, I'd say go for it. I think the key is to go beyond just acknowledging their work, but show them that you've read it and thought about it a great deal. Even Horne, whose book has been widely read, would probably appreciate knowing that people are still engaged in it.

I did. I contacted Professor Peter Shapinsky about his work on Japanese pirates and asked for some recommendations on where I should be looking for research materials. I got a really positive response. I should say, in the interest of full disclosure, that I have the same advisor as he had, but I think he would have responded the same regardless. It was really awesome because later I was able to invite him to do a workshop with our student organization and go to lunch with him and a few other students and pick his brain a bit.

I emailed a couple of other historians I was considering working with when I was applying to PhD programs, just to generally ask "Are you taking students" and share my general field of research. Those responses weren't as warm, but they still responded telling me to apply.

I can't give you any tips on tracking down famous historians, since I've only ever emailed academics and they foolishly keep their email address publicly available on university websites. I can say I've only ever had very positive experiences with writing scholars out of the blue. I not to long ago wrote Michael E. Smith with a question /u/snickeringshadow had posed to me, but for which I really had no good answer. Dr. Smith wrote back promptly with a couple words of advice and attached an article which I don't think I ever would have found on my own (he demurred on doing an AMA due to scheduling though).

My very first experience writing to an academic was actually not to a historian, but to an anthropologist. I did a lot of work in undergrad on paleoprimatology (ask me about Plio-Pleistocene Papionins!), particularly in comparative diets between extinct and extant species. I consistently found that the works of a certain R.I.M. Dunbar on Gelada baboons was superb ethological work, so I wrote him to say so, expecting no answer. Much to my surprise he wrote back later that same day to thank me (me!) for my kind words and briefly lament that political strife had curtailed further investigation into T. gelada behavior. It was then I realized that academics, like most of us, like getting mail, particularly mail that tells them their work has reached and inspired others.

As a side note, in a classic bit of a Baader-Meihoff phenomenon, I learned that Dr. Dunbar was actually quite famous for "Dunbar's Number" (aka the Monkeysphere). I thought I was just writing to some guy who watched cool looking monkeys in Ethiopia during the 70s.

So if you ever feel the urge to write someone to thank them for their work, I encourage you to do so. They're easy to find if they hold a university position and they'll appreciate it. The Ivory Tower gets lonely. Also, Gelada baboons are awesome.

I've had some reasonable success with emailing academics when I was doing a research essay last year, stating my intentions with the email very clearly in the opening sentence. Paul Preston was fairly quick to reply, which was with a short little paragraph of his opinion on the question, pretty much what I asked for. Beevor decided that he didn't want to comment on the topic any more after finishing his book, which he explained politely. Stephen Suleyman Schwartz was my most successful one. I used the same framework as the others, yet Schwartz ended up writing about 2000 words in three separate email replies going into a fair bit of detail, which I thanked him immensely for.

I'd definitely say that sending an email is worth a shot. Just keep your intentions very clear and remember not to demand too much of them. Email or contact addresses are usually on their websites or university pages.

Yes, I have. I wrote to an author of an article that really inspired (and informed) me while I wrote an independent study in my undergrad. I got a super helpful response (pointed in the direction of more sources, encouragement, and the like). I found the email address as part of the citation/author information in the journal I read the article in.

I've also emailed several other professors/historians at major (and not so major) institutions. 95% of the responses have been very helpful and positive - if delayed.

If the historian you want to write to is associated with a university, they will likely have an email there. Alternatively, you could contact the publishing house. They will either pass your message on, provide contact information, or ignore you - but hopefully one of the former options!