The Familiar Letter in the Eighteenth CenturyEdited by Howard Anderson, Philip B. Daghlian, and Irvin Ehrenpreisviii, 312 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
"It is surprising that this book has not been written before. For years critics have recognized the importance of 18th-century familiar letters without ever trying systematically to define the sources of their literary power. This group of 15 essays, by as many authors, begins this important critical work. . . . the essays . . . consistently call our attention to important literary issues and concepts of the period. . . . With a range of tone from Cowper's apparent intimacy to Burke's moral authority, the letters resolve in remarkably varied ways the tension between their writers' egos and the demands of subject matter and audience. This collection is absorbing, important, unprecedented, and surely indispensable for undergraduate or graduate collections."--Choice CONTRIBUTORS: Herbert Davis, Oliver W. Ferguson, Rosemary Cowler, Robert Halsband, Malvin R, Zirker, Jr., Cecil Price, Philip B. Daghlian, Howard Anderson, R. W. Ketton-Cremer, William N. Free, James T. Boulton, William R. Cagle, Patricia Craddock, Rufus Reiberg, Irvin Ehrenpreis
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With the growth of efficient postal
service in England and the stimulus of a growing tradition of
informal prose among eighteenth-century men of leisure, the intimate
letter reached unprecedented literary heights as the exemplary
form of the period. Considered here are the striking and diverse
qualities both of the art and the personalities of the great
letter-writers: Swift, Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Richardson,
the Earl of Chesterfield, Johnson, Sterne, Gray, Walpole, Burke,
Cowper, Gibbon, and Boswell