Table of Contents

1: Introduction
2: Letters and Letter-Writers
3: The Composition of Letters
4: Female Literacy and the Conventions of Letter-Writing
5: Delivery, Reception, and Reading
6: The Functions of Letter-Writing
7: Social Relations Inscribed in Correspondence: Authority and Affection
8: Marital Correspondence
9: Letters of Petition
10: Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

James Daybell is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Plymouth. He is the editor of Early Modern Women's Letter-Writing, 1450-1700 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001; winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women award for best collaborative project, 2002), and Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-1700 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), and has published numerous articles on early modern social and cultural history.

Reviews

A fine analytical survey and an invaluable manual for the historian Bernard Capp, History an overdue and brilliant tool for students of this crucial emerging field of scholarship...the depth of material covered and insight into the contextual functions of the genre make it just as invaluable to literary, sociocultural, and feminist scholarship. Johanna Harris, Notes and Queries, Volume 252, Number 3 Daybell's book has an impressive research base and many apt and sometimes entertaining examples... a welcome introduction to the study of women's letters, and of early-modern society. Alison Wall, English Historical Review