British and American Letter Manuals, 1680–1810
Editor: Eve Tavor Bannet
978 1 85196 918 0: 234x156mm: £350.00/$625.00
In 1687, John Hill recommended that in the face of emigration, colonization and a growing transatlantic market, letter manuals should disseminate letter-writing skills throughout the Atlantic world, making it possible to maintain a ‘good correspondency’ with provincial outposts, commercial contacts, and distant family or friends. During the next century, letter manuals became the most popular form of conduct literature. They were marketed to and used by a wide spectrum of society, from maidservants and apprentices, through military officers and merchants, to gentlemen, courting couples, parents and children. This four-volume facsimile edition makes available the most influential manuals from both sides of the Atlantic.
Letter manuals taught their readers conventions and practices of letter writing and reading designed to overcome regional differences in language and culture and to create a single standard of polite communication. At the same time, London manuals were transformed and adapted to local needs and tastes throughout the Atlantic world, by regional printers who made Scottish and American manuals a proto-nationalist genre.
Modern readers can use letter manuals to learn the commonplaces which correspondents were taught to repeat and vary in their own letters, and to see how departures from these commonplaces functioned as significant statement. These conventions were familiar to writers from Aphra Behn to Jane Austen, and Samuel Richardson to Walter Scott. The edition will be vital to scholars interested in Eighteenth-Century Studies, Atlantic History, History of the Book and Reading.
- The first thematic edition of letter manuals - an overlooked genre which was aimed at social classes ignored by more familiar conduct literature
- Demonstrates how letter manuals reflected and created local difference on either side of the Atlantic
- Can be used as an interpretative guide for analysing historical letters and epistolatory novels
- New editorial material includes a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes, endnotes and a consolidated index
Sample pages
- Volume 2: John Hill, The Young Secretary's Guide
- Volume 2: John Hill, The Young Secretary's Guide: editorial notes
- Volume 3: Samuel Richardson, Letters Written to and for Particular Friends
- Volume 3: Samuel Richardson, Letters Written to and for Particular Friends: editorial notes
Contents
Volume I: Academies Of Complement 1680–1805
The Form of Letters
The New Academy of Complements or the Lover’s Secretary (1754); The Complete Letter Writer, or Polite English Secretary (1768); The New Complete Letter Writer or the Art of Correspondence (1790)
Translations from the French
Puget de la Serre, The Secretary in Fashion, or a Compendious and Refined Way of Expression in all Manner of Letters (1683); M Voiture, Familiar and Courtly Letters to Persons of Honour and Quality, translated by John Dryden (1700)
London
The Academy of Complements with many new additions (1684); The New Academy of Complements erected for Ladies, Gentlewomen, Courtiers, Gentlemen (1698)
London and Worcester, Massachusetts
The New Academy of Complements or the Lover’s Secretary (1754)
London, Philadelphia, Wilmington & New York
The American Academy of Complements; or the Complete American Secretary (1796)
Volume II: Secretaries, 1687–1760
Letter Classes
‘Introduction’, ‘Useful Instructions Altogether Necessary to be Observed by those who undertake to Pen and Indite Letters’, John Hill, The Young Secretary’s Guide, or Speedy Help to Learning (1687)
London
John Hill, The Young Secretary’s Guide, or Speedy Help to Learning, 7th edition (1696); Thomas Goodman, The Experienc’d Secretary or Citizen and Countryman’s Companion (1699)
Boston
‘Thomas Hill’, The Young Secretary’s Guide or Experienc’d Secretary (1703); The Young Secretary’s Guide, or Speedy Help to Learning. Collected by B W (1707)
New York & Philadelphia
William and Andrew Bradford, The Secretary’s Guide or Young Man’s Companion (1728)
Philadelphia
Andrew Bradford, The Secretary’s Guide or Young Man’s Companion (1737)
Volume III: Complete Letter-Writers, 1740–1795
On Epistolatory Style
‘Gentleman of Fortune’, The New Art of Letter Writing (1762)
London
Samuel Richardson, Letters Written to and from Particular Friends on the most Important Occasions (1741); Charles Hallifax, Familiar Letters on Various Subjects of Business and Amusement (1755); George Fisher, The Instructor; or Young Man’s Best Companion (1767)
London, Edinburgh, Boston & New York, Philadelphia, Hartford & Salem
The Complete Letter-Writer or Polite English Secretary (1768)
Glasgow, New York, New Haven
H W Dilworth, The Complete Letter Writer or Young Secretary’s Instructor (1783); H W Dilworth, The Complete Letter Writer or Young Secretary’s Instructor (1793)
Aberdeen & London
David Fordyce, New and Complete British Letter Writer, or Young Secretary’s Instructor in Polite Letter-Writing (c.1790)
Philadelphia
The American Letter Writer: Containing a Variety of Letters on the most common Occasions of Life (1793)
Volume IV: The Art Of Correspondence, 1770–1810
Language Skills and Reading Aloud
‘Instructions and Observations’, The Correspondent, (1796); ‘Rules for Reading’, The Complete Letter Writer (1768); ‘Of Accents and Emphasis’, ‘Stops and Marks used in Reading’, The Court Letter Writer (1773)
London
Thomas Cooke, The Universal Letter Writer or New Art of Polite Correspondence (1788)
Philadelphia, Worcester Massachusetts Boston, New York & Albany
The New Complete Letter-Writer or the Art of Correspondence (1790)
Philadelphia
The New Universal Letter Writer, or Complete Art of Polite Correspondence (1800)
New York, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Vermont
The New and Complete Letter Writer or New Art of Polite Correspondence (1803)
New York
The Complete American Letter-Writer and Best Companion for the Man of Business (1807)