The Ladies Complete Letter-Writer (1763)

1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4438-2497-2
Verlag: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 450 Seiten

How did people learn to write letters in the eighteenth century? Among other books, letter-writing manuals provided a possible solution. Although more than 160 editions can be traced for the eighteenth century, most manuals were largely intended for men. As a consequence, when The Ladies Complete Letter-Writer was released in London in 1763, it was the first manual to be exclusively destined for women in eighteenth-century Britain.

Even though it was published anonymously, several elements tend to show that it must have been edited by Edward Kimber. It was reprinted in Dublin in 1763 and in London in 1765 and largely circulated. The reasons for its success may have come from its concern in epistolary rhetoric, its original organisation, or the entertainment provided by examples coming from different sources, among which letters by Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Mary Collier, or the Marquise de Lambert. It also provided women with a variety of subjects which were supposed to be part of their sphere of interest, and others which were not, thus questioning a number of pre-conceived ideas on women and their way of writing with or without propriety.

Unedited since 1765, the manual is now presented with introduction, notes and two indices focusing on the issues of sources, society and epistolary writing.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kerhervé, Alain

Über Autor(innen)

Kerhervé, Alain
Alain Kerhervé is Senior Lecturer in English at the Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines Victor Segalen, Brest, Brittany, France. He is a member of the HCTI-Ceima research laboratory and of the Société d'Etudes anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. He wrote a book on Mary Delany (1700-1788) published by L'Harmattan in 2004, edited letters from and to Mary Delany (Polite Letters: The Correspondence of Mary Delany (1700-1788) and Francis North, Lord Guilford (1704-1790), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) and he has published several articles on letter-writing in eighteenth-century England (for more details, see www.univ-brest.fr/HCTI).

Alain Kerhervé is Senior Lecturer in English at the Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines Victor Segalen, Brest, Brittany, France. He is a member of the HCTI-Ceima research laboratory and of the Société d'Etudes anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. He wrote a book on Mary Delany (1700-1788) published by L'Harmattan in 2004, edited letters from and to Mary Delany (Polite Letters: The Correspondence of Mary Delany (1700-1788) and Francis North, Lord Guilford (1704-1790), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) and he has published several articles on letter-writing in eighteenth-century England (for more details, see www.univ-brest.fr/HCTI).