• Bev Corbin (left) and Jackie in Newport with friends, summer 1945.
  • “Buddy darling,” Jackie begins many of her letters written on both personal and Miss Porter’s School stationery.

Before Ari Onassis, before Jack Kennedy, there was Bev — Beverley Corbin, Jr., a Harvard student and early flame of a teenaged Jacqueline Bouvier. On Thursday, Christie’s New York will auction off 22 private letters from Jackie to Bev, one telegram and a photograph of the pair for an estimated $25,000-$35,000. Even at 16, Jackie displays her famous wit in her musings, as well as a romantic side. “I do love you though — and can love you without kissing you every time I see you,” she wrote. The young lovers’ correspondence ends with Jackie letting Bev know about her engagement to John Husted: “What I hope for you is for the same thing to happen as quickly and as surely as it did with me. It will when you least expect it.” What a heart-breaker….

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