The Material Letter in Early Modern England: Manuscript Letters and the Culture and Practices of Letter-Writing, 1512-1635

by J. Daybell

Overview

The first major socio-cultural study of manuscript letters and letter-writing practices in early modern England. Daybell examines a crucial period in the development of the English vernacular letter before Charles I's postal reforms in 1635, one that witnessed a significant extension of letter-writing skills throughout society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230222694
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	04/24/2012
Series:	Early Modern Literature in History
Edition description:	2012
Pages:	357
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

JAMES DAYBELL is professor of Early Modern British History at Plymouth University, UK, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is author of Women Letter-Writers in Tudor England (2006); editor of Early Modern Women's Letter-Writing, 1450-170(2001), Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-1700 (2004), and (with Peter Hinds) Material Readings of Early Modern Culture, 1580-1730 (2010).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations viii

List of Abbreviations x

Acknowledgements xiii

1 Introduction 1

2 Materials and Tools of Letter-Writing 30

3 Epistolary Writing technologies 53

4 Interpreting Materiality and Social Signs 85

5 Postal Conditions 109

6 Secret Letters 148

7 Copying, Letter-Books and the Scribal Circulation of Letters 175

8 The Afterlives of Letters 217

9 Conclusion 229

Notes 234

Select Bibliography 291

Index 335

Editorial Reviews

The Material Letter provides a guide to the protean messiness of correspondence in a period which saw English epistolary habits and technologies undergo drastic change. … a remarkable achievement and will be an essential reference tool for anyone studying or editing English correspondence from this period. It poses important and difficult questions to would-be editors and encourages scholars familiar with printed letters to return to the archive in search of a wide range of previously neglected material signs.” (Kelsey Jackson Williams, History, Vol. 100 (341), July, 2015)

"...a valuable reference work and stimulus to further research." Thomas O. Beebee, Renaissance Quarterly

"The main strength of the book is the breadth of archival material that Daybell harnesses: it is based on an examination of well over 10,000 manuscript letters. Taken together, the chapters unpretentiously demonstrate a wealth of knowledge, and the result

is a work of immense academic generosity. Its clarity will make it a perfect introduction to the study of letters for students and scholars coming to this subject for the first time: it assumes no prior knowledge, it is logically structured, and each chapter ends with a clear summary. Moreover, the bibliography is huge, and Daybell even goes so far as to describe to his readers how to go about doing the kind of archival research he suggests, listing a range of helpful finding aids (225 6). The dutifulness of the book means that there is hardly anything I would want to see added." Ruth Ahnert, SHARP News

From the Publisher