Home
The Familiar Letter in the Eighteenth Century

The Familiar Letter in the Eighteenth Century

Edited by Howard Anderson, Philip B. Daghlian and Irvin Ehrenpreis

Sales Date: May 15, 1968

320 Pages, 5.50 x 8.50 in

Paperback
9780700600038
Published: May 1968

$29.95

Buy

Description
Authors
Praise
Table of Contents

With the growth of efficient postal service in England and the stimulus of a growing tradition of informal prose among eighteenth-century men of leisure, the intimate letter reached unprecedented literary heights as the exemplary form of the period. Considered here are the striking and diverse qualities both of the art and the personalities of the great letter-writers: Swift, Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Richardson, the Earl of Chesterfield, Johnson, Sterne, Gray, Walpole, Burke, Cowper, Gibbon, and Boswell.

Howard Anderson was professor of English at Michigan State University.

Philip B. Daghlian was professor of English at Indiana University.

Irvin Ehrenpreis was the Linden Kent Memorial Professor of English Literature at the University of Virginia.

"It is surprising that this book has not been written before. For years critics have recognized the importance of 18th-century familiar letters without ever trying systematically to define the sources of their literary power. This group of 15 essays, by as many authors, begins this important critical work. . . . the essays . . . consistently call our attention to important literary issues and concepts of the period. . . . With a range of tone from Cowper’s apparent intimacy to Burke’s moral authority, the letters resolve in remarkably varied ways the tension between their writers’ egos and the demands of subject matter and audience. This collection is absorbing, important, unprecedented, and surely indispensable for undergraduate or graduate collections."—Choice

1. Correspondence of the Augustans, Herbert Davis

2. “Nature and Friendship”: The Personal Letters of Jonathan Swift, Oliver W. Ferguson

3. Shadow and Substance: A Discussion of Pope’s Correspondence, Rosemary Cowler

4. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as Letter-Writer, Robert Halsband

5. Richardson’s Correspondence: The Personal Letter as Private Experience, Malvin R. Zirker, Jr.

6. “The Art of Pleasing”: The Letters of Chesterfield, Cecil Price

7. Dr. Johnson in his Letters: The Public Guise of Private Matter, Philip B. Daghlian

8. Sterne’s Letters: Consciousness and Sympathy, Howard Anderson

9. The Poet Who Spoke Out: The Letters of Thomas Grey, R.W. Ketton-Cremer

10. Walpole’s Letters: The Art of Being Graceful, William N. Free

11. The Letters of Edmund Burke: “Manly Liberty of Speech,” James T. Boulton

12. Cowper’s Letters: Mirror to the Man, William R. Cagle

13. Edward Gibbon: The Man in his Letters, Patricia Craddock

14. James Boswell’s Personal Correspondence: The Dramatized Quest for Identity, Rufus Reiberg

15. The Familiar Letter in the Eighteenth Century: Some Generalizations, Howard Anderson and Irvin Ehrenpreis

Notes

Index

Books

Authors

On The Site

The Familiar Letter in the Eighteenth Century

The Familiar Letter in the Eighteenth Century

Related Books