Category Archives: 19th-century letters

Penholder’s identity

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Annemiek

Upon reading the article The Letter-Writing Manual in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: From Polite to Practical by Lyda Fens-de Zeeuw, a number of interesting research questions came to mind. For me the most challenging and thought provoking question was the … Continue reading →

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OED not (yet) helpful on Turkies

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

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 →

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Addison’s hand

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

One of my students was writing a paper on Joseph Addison’s Will, and because she wanted to verify if the Will was actually in his own hand, she googled for “Joseph Addison” and “handwriting”. Joseph Addison lived from 1672 to … Continue reading →

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The Browning letters again

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

Another Browning specialist informed me that, as far as he knew, the Baylor letters project is “free to air”: excellent news. He also recommended the book The Courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett by Daniel Karlin (1985, Oxford: Clarendon Press) . … Continue reading →

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On long s

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

Long <s> is a typical feature of 18th-century English spelling, as James Boswell’s letter, reproduced elsewhere in this blog, shows. But though it disappeared from printed texts around the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, it still appears … Continue reading →

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The Browning love letters

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

On Valentine’s Day, the Guardian announced the online publication of the Browning love letters, letters exchanged between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, which I also reported on elsewhere in this blog. The article mentions that there are 573 letters, and a first glance … Continue reading →

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Studies on Late Modern English letters

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

The following is a list of book-length studies on Late Modern English letters, from a linguistic, discourse-analytical or sociohistorical perspective. Additions are very welcome. Fens-de Zeeuw, Lyda (2011). Lindley Murray (1745-1826), Quaker and Grammarian. Utrecht: LOT. Fitzmaurice, Susan (2002). The Familiar Letter in Early … Continue reading →

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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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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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