Empire of Letters
Letter Manuals and Transatlantic Correspondence, 1680–1820

This lively, interdisciplinary book will change the way we read and interpret eighteenth-century letters.

Eve Tavor Bannet (Author)

9780521856188, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 January 2006

372 pages
23.5 x 16.2 x 2.8 cm, 0.72 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Not the least merit of Eve Tavor Bannet's groundbreaking book, Empire of Letters, is its critique of the Habermasian division of public and private spheres as it is often understood.' The Times Literary Supplement

Among the most frequently reprinted books of the long eighteenth century, English, Scottish and American letter manuals spread norms of polite conduct and communication, which helped to connect and unify different regions of the British Atlantic world, even as they fostered and helped to create very different local and regional cultures and values. By teaching secret writing, they also enabled transatlantic correspondents to communicate what they needed despite interception, censorship and the practice of reading private letters in company. Eve Tavor Bannet uncovers what people knew then about letters that we have forgotten, and revolutionises our understanding of eighteenth-century letters, novels, periodicals, and other kinds of writing in manuscript and print which used the letter form. This lively, interdisciplinary book will change the way we read and interpret eighteenth-century letters and think about the book in the Atlantic world.

Prologue
Part I. Letter Manuals and Eighteenth-Century Letteracy: Introduction
1. Empire of letters
2. Manual architectonics
Part II. Letter Manuals in Britain and America: Introduction
3. Secretaries at the turn of the eighteenth century
4. The complete letter-writers of the middle years
5. The art of correspondence, 1790–1820
Part III. Secrecy and the Transatlantic Culture of Letters: Introduction
6. Public and hidden transcripts
7. From Crevecoeur to Franklin and Mr. Spectator
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]