A few years ago, Donatella Montini, from the Sapienza Università of Rome, published an edition of letters by Samuel Richardson which focused on the making of Clarissa. For this edition, which came out in 2009, she translated a selection of … Continue reading
When I first started working on Robert Lowth’s letters, and in particular on the letters he had written to his wife Mary, I happened to tell a colleague about them. The colleague was surprised to find that Lowth’s private name … Continue reading
Anyone interested in pauper letters will come across Thomas Sokoll’s book Essex Pauper Letters, 1731-1837, published in 2001. An online review of the book came out in HistoricalSociolinguistics/Sociohistorical Linguistics two years later. But the book is also cited as important introductory reading … Continue reading
There are 13 letters in the Leiden University Library by William Warburton (1698–1779), who is described by the ONDB as ‘bishop of Gloucester and religious controversialist’. One of the people he entered into a controversy with was Robert Lowth (1710-1787). For a … Continue reading
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I just came across this (old) reference in my mailbox (with thanks to Richard Dury for telling me about the book a long time ago): EVE TAVOR BANNET, Empire of Letters: Letter Manuals and Transatlantic Correspondence, 1688-1820. Pp.xxiii + 347. … Continue reading
What do Late Modern English grammars, cookbooks and letter-writing manuals have in common? They all show a remarkable increase in popularity during the 2nd half of the 18th century. I’ve described this for grammar books in Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2008), … Continue reading
Reading the post on Julia Maitland’s letters, one of our readers, Tony Fairman, was struck by the reference to “Dr Bell his sytem”. He kindly sent us his notes on Dr Bell, for others to read. The notes relate to the work … Continue reading
For his MA thesis in Linguistics at the University of Leiden, Marijn Verschuure analysed two corpora of letters written in English by Dutch people. The first corpus consisted of 83 short commercial letters that were presumably written by the directors … Continue reading
There is a lovely portrait of Robert Dodsley (1704-1764), one of the most important bookseller/publishers from the period, and who was also a writer. Dodsley was the instigator of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary (1755), and he also published Robert Lowth‘s Short Introduction … Continue reading
Analysing Jane Austen’s spelling in her letters, I found the plural Turkies rather than Turkeys as we spell it today: he hopes all your Turkies & Ducks & Chicken & Guinea Fowls are very well (letter 21) We are just … Continue reading
Late Modern English letters 