Epistolary Spaces: English Letter-writing from the Foundation of the Post Office to Richardson's "Clarissa"

by How (Author), JamesHow (Author)

• New

  Hardcover
  2018

  $130.32

  This title was first published in 2003. The author explores and describes the nature of what he terms epistolary spaces , phenomena that came into being as a result of the foundation during the 1650s of a Post Office available to the general public. He focuses on the history of letter-writing by English men and women, and in so doing he shows how the imaginations of letter writers were affected by the increasingly cheaper, faster and more efficient postal services that were developed throughout the time period covered. The book makes a detailed study of five real correspondences, reading the letters in terms of their social and political interest and addressing such concerns as class, gender, collections of model letters and the importance of London to English epistolary spaces.