Entertainment and Instruction: Women’s Roles in the English Epistolary Tradition

Abstract

Letter-writing manuals were a highly popular print genre in early modern England. Their study yields much valuable information about their cultural milieu. In particular, they illuminate discursive, commercial, and social conventions, as well as their gradual transformation over time. Eighteenth-century manuals show increasing interest in supplying detailed descriptions of commercial and social life. This essay examines common motifs in epistolary writing as well as the nature of these manuals’ advice to women.