Victorian letter writing and its representation in literature and painting: the case study of love letters

One of the main features of nineteenth-century fiction is the quasi-total disappearance of the epistolary novel that had had its heydays in the previous century. For this reason, some scholars have declared the “death” of the letter in literature after the transitional romantic period. However, Victorian novels overflow with letters that are embedded, quoted in part or described and commented on by narrators or characters. Even when its content is not revealed to the reader, the letter becomes a signifier loaded with meanings, also and particularly so, when it is burnt, torn, hidden, found or buried. The Postal Reform of 1839-40 caused the number of letters sent every year in Britain to grow from 75 to 410 million in only 14 years, and the mediatic campaign that supported it drew the attention of the population to the material aspects concerning this means of communication. Newspapers became more affordable too and they promoted a taste for sensationalism that often involved the “spectacularization” of private correspondence. Starting from an excursus on the history of the letter aimed at identifying the key aspects of the genre, this work deals with some real love correspondences from people belonging to different classes in the period from 1840 to the 1870s, to then analyse their fictional and pictorial counterparts. The general picture that emerges from this analysis is that of a Victorian society where letters were able to break down the boundaries between high and low forms of cultural expressions and where, more than ever, letters were present in people’s everyday lives as well as in the art and literature they enjoyed.

Tsaḥut ha-melitsah : ...meʾah ṿe-ʻeśrim igrot ʻIvriyot...le-lamed...ḳeset ha-sofer u-darkhe ha-melitsah.

Mode of access: Internet.

Letter - E.C. Schmon to Arthur A. Schmon, 11 April 1916

A letter from Eleanore Celeste Schmon to Arthur A. Schmon in the year 1916. She discusses her letter writing, a luncheon at the McCrackens and her work with the Red Cross. It is labelled the 84th letter.

Letter - E.C. Schmon to Arthur A. Schmon, 17 April 1918

Eleanore Celeste has had some treatment for inflammation of her eyes. Her eyes have improved so she can resume her letter writing. The letter is labelled number 86.

Smithdeal's practical grammar, speller and letter-writer. For use in business colleges, academies, public and private schools,

Second and 3rd parts have special t.p.'s, with copyright date 1896.

The letter writer's own book, or, The art of polite correspondence ; containing a variety of plain and elegant letters...to which are added forms of mortgages, deeds, bonds, powers of attorney, etc.

Mode of access: Internet.

The new universal letter writer : containing letters on duty, amusement, love, courtship, marriage, friendship, trade, religion, and other useful subjects /

Mode of access: Internet.

The letter writer: containing a great variety of letters on the following subjects: relationship - business - love, courtship, and marriage -friendship, and miscellaneous letters:

Mode of access: Internet.

The United States letter writer;

Mode of access: Internet.

The Universal letter-writer, or, Whole art of polite correspondence : containing a great variety of plain, easy ... original letters : together with various forms of petitions : to which is added a modern collection of genteel complimentary cards ... useful forms in law ...

Includes index.

The great English letter-writers /

Mode of access: Internet.

Gossip about letters and letter-writers.

"Cheap edition."

La Consulta i el prefaci quadripartit de l’Espill de Jaume Roig

This article points out that Jaume Roig’s Espill is a fictional autobiography written in the guise of a letter and thereby dated at Callosa d’en Sarrià in 1460. Joan Fabra, a knight suffering from love-illness, consults the physician Jaume Roig, who sends him a reply letter. Thus the work is also a lletovari (a mock medical prescription), a genre which was often presented in a verse letter-writing form. The four-part preface follows the four causes (efficient, final, material, and formal) of the ‘Aristotelian prologue’, a type of accessus largely used by scholars from the 12th century