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

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. Eve Tavor Bannet uncovers what people knew then about letters that we have forgotten, and revolutionizes our understanding of eighteenth-century letters, novels, periodicals, and other kinds of writing in manuscript and print which used the letter form.