During the last few weeks of the course Letters as Sociohistorical-Linguistic Documents, I’ve been reminded of the many special linguistic insights which letters are able to provide. We’ve read,* for example, about how letters may provide evidence for reconstructing social … Continue reading
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Today I received a surprise package in my mail! Of course, I remembered ordering a copy of Penholder’s Everybody’s Letter Writer: being a Complete Guide to Letter Writing, but the website (abebooks.com) had told me that it would take 10 to … 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
After our group discussion of last Tuesday, I became interested to know whether or not the exemplary letters in the discussed letter-writing manuals such as The Complete Letter Writer were real or not. Even though my primary impression was that … 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
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
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
Late Modern English letters 