Monthly Archives: August 2012

Julia Maitland’s letters

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

Julia Maitland (1808-1864) is the author of the book Letters from Madras during the years 1836-1839, originally published by John Murray in London, in 1843, and re-issued by Alyson Price in 2004 (OUP, New Delhi). The book includes 27 letters which are … Continue reading →

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Peter Lang’s series Linguistic Insights

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

The publisher Peter Lang just distributed a catalogue with an overview of their impressive series called Linguistic Insights, Studies in language and communication, edited by Maurizio Gotti from the University of Bergamo. The series contains several titles that are relevant … Continue reading →

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The Pen and the People

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

This is the title of a magnificent study by Susan Whyman. Its subtitle is English Letter Writers 1660-1800, and the book was first published in 2009 by Oxford University Press. It analyses a host of letters from the period, but focusses … Continue reading →

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Studying the language of letters

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

If you write a PhD in the Netherlands, you usually have to supply a set of so-called “stellingen” (scholarly propositions) along with the printed book. I defended my PhD in 1987, and my thesis was called The Auxiliary Do in Eighteenth-Century … Continue reading →

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Horace Walpole’s letters online

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

Horace Walpole was an inveterate letter writer, and his correspondence is probably the largest collection of letters that is available for analysis, linguistic and otherwise. Froukje Henstra is writing a PhD thesis on the language of the letters. A short … Continue reading →

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Letters exhibition at Leiden

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

Last year, an exhibition was held at the Leiden University Library of letters from the late modern period, Dutch as well as English ones. It was called Ach schrijf mij toch!, which expresses the need for letters from far-away loved … Continue reading →

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Napoleon writing in English

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

This summer, a letter from Napoleon was auctioned, written in 1816 and addressed to his teacher. It was meant as an exercise, to practice his English. The article in NRC-Next which announced the news, suggests that he still had a lot to … Continue reading →

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The Browning love letters

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (1845-1846) is a lovely two-volume copy, published in London in 1913 (new edition). The original edition had been published in 1898, by Harper and Brothers. The editor of the letters, not mentioned … Continue reading →

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