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Epistolary Fiction (Correspondence)

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By: Hannah Webster Foster (1758-1840)

Book cover Coquette, Or The History of Eliza Wharton

The classic early American epistolary novel about the seduction and ruin of a passionate young woman. Based on the true story of Elizabeth Whitman, whose lonesome death in childbirth in a Connecticut inn sparked widespread discussion and outrage, the novel went through many editions and innumerable printings in the century after its initial publication in 1797.

By: Pliny the Younger (61 - ca. 112)

Book cover Letters of Pliny

The largest surviving body of Pliny's work is his Epistulae (Letters), a series of personal missives directed to his friends, associates and the Emperor Trajan. These letters are a unique testimony of Roman administrative history and everyday life in the 1st century CE. Especially noteworthy among the letters are two in which he describes the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August 79, during which his uncle Pliny the Elder died (65 and 66 in this edition), and one in which he asks the Emperor for instructions regarding official policy concerning Christians (Trajan Letter 97)...

By: Angelina Emily Grimké (1805-1879)

Book cover Letters to Catherine E. Beecher in Reply to an Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism

This is a collection of thirteen letters from Angelina Grimké on the subjects of abolitionism and human rights in the United States.

By: Anonymous

Book cover Unaddressed Letters

“I had a friend who loved me;” but he has gone, and the “great gulf” is between us. After his death, I received a packet of manuscript with these few words:—“What I have written may appeal to you because of our friendship, and because, when you come to read them, you will seek to grasp, in these apparent confidences, an inner meaning that to the end will elude you. If you think others, not the many but the few, might find here any answer to their unuttered questionings, any fellowship of sympathy in those experiences which are the milestones of our lives, then use the letters as you will, but without my name...

By: C. H. W. (Claude Hermann Walter) Johns (1857-1920)

Book cover Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters

By: Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)

Book cover Edgar Huntly or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker
Book cover Jane Talbot

By: Charles Norris Williamson (1859-1920)

Book cover Set in Silver

By: Ed M. Clinton (1926-2006)

Book cover Untechnological Employment

By: Edith Wharton (1862-1937)

The Touchstone by Edith Wharton The Touchstone

Stephen Glennard's career is falling apart and he desperately needs money so that he may marry his beautiful fiancee. He happens upon an advertisement in a London magazine promising the prospect of financial gain. Glennard was once pursued by Margaret Aubyn, a famous and recently deceased author, and he still has her passionate love letters to him. Glennard removes his name from the letters and sells them, making him a fortune and building a marriage based on the betrayal of another.

By: Eleanor Hallowell Abbott (1872-1958)

The Indiscreet Letter by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott The Indiscreet Letter

Three fellow travelers on a train enter into a discussion concerning what they would call an ‘indiscreet letter.’ The discussion albeit short, produces some rather interesting revelations during the journey and at journey’s end.

By: Elinore Pruitt Stewart (1878-1933)

Book cover Letters on an Elk Hunt

This is a sequel to Letters of a Woman Homesteader in which Elinore Rupert (Pruitt) Stewart describes her arrival and early years on a Burntfork Wyoming ranch in 1909-1913. The letters are written to her elderly friend, Mrs. Coney, in Denver. In the present collection of letters, Elinore describes a lively excursion on horseback and wagon into the Wyoming wilderness during July-October 1914. Her traveling companions are her husband “Mr. Stewart,” their three oldest children, and kind-hearted, opinionated neighbor Mrs...

By: Eliza Fenwick (1766-1840)

Book cover Secresy, or, the Ruin on the Rock

This is the story of Caroline and Sibella, two female friends. Strong and smart women who try to make it in a man's world while keeping their values and loyalties intact. The only way to do that is to hide a few secrets. Yet secrets cannot remain hidden for ever, and everything has a price. This is both a social novel and a gothic novel. A true page turner with all the elements of a good 18th century novel: a woman locked in an estate, a hidden pregnancy, some politics of marriage, villains, sentimentality and thought provoking philosophy. Summary by Stav Nisser.

By: Fanny Burney

Evelina by Fanny Burney Evelina

In this epistolary novel, we find a young woman named Evelina, who was raised in rural seclusion until her eighteenth year because of her uncertain parentage. Through a series of harrowing and humorous events that take place in London and an English resort town, Evelina learns how to navigate the complex layers of 18th century society and earn the love of a distinguished and honorable nobleman. This comedy of manners often satirizes the society in which it is set; Evelina is a significant precursor to later works by Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth, whose novels explore many of the same issues. (from Evelina’s wikipedia entry, modified by ettelocin)

By: Frances Moore Brooke (1724-1789)

Book cover History of Emily Montague Vol 1 (Dramatic Reading)

The novel takes place 10 years after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759 when Quebec becomes a British colony. Written as a collection of letters, the story follows the relationships between Edward Rivers (a British soldier), his friend, John Temple (rather a cad), Emily Montague (a young British woman), and her dearest friend, Arabella Fermor (a flirtatious drama queen). Giving glimpses into the new frontier discoveries of Canada, one not only peeks into the personal relationships of these characters but gets swept away by the enticing descriptions of the "new world." This is Volume 1 out of 4.

By: Frank Chouteau Brown

Book cover Letters and Lettering A Treatise With 200 Examples

By: Franklin H. (Franklin Harvey) Head (1832-1914)

Book cover Shakespeare's Insomnia, and the Causes Thereof

By: George Horace Lorimer (1869-1937)

Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son by George Horace Lorimer Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as "Old Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as "Piggy." George Horace Lorimer was an American journalist and author. He is best known as the editor of The Saturday Evening Post.

Book cover Old Gorgon Graham More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

By: Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806)

Book cover Sylph

Georgianna Cavendish, duchess of Devonshire was one of the leading ladies of her time. There for, her novel, which contains many autobiographical plots, has been published anonymously. The author was thought to have been Sophia Briscoe, a contemporary novelist, or Fanny Burney, author of Evelina which was published at about the same time. However the duchess admitted to writing the story of Julia Grenville, a welsh beauty who marries an older man. She very quickly discovers her husband is a libertine and a rake, and that she has no idea how to behave in London society...

By: H. Beam Piper (1904-1964)

Book cover Operation R.S.V.P.

By: Henry James (1843-1916)

Book cover A Bundle of Letters

By: Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)

Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac Letters of Two Brides

An epistolary novel written by renowned French novelist Balzac, who is regarded as one of the founders of realism and a significant influence to later novelists, the novel focuses on two young women who preserve their friendship through regular correspondence. Originally published in the French newspaper La Presse in 1841 as a serial, the piece later became a part of Balzac’s distinguished novel sequence La Comédie Humaine, or The Human Comedy. Furthermore, Letters of Two Brides surrounds intriguing topics including love, romance, confusion, duty, and the complexity of relationships...

By: Jane Austen (1775-1817)

Love and Friendship by Jane Austen Love and Friendship

Begun when she was just eleven years old, Love and Friendship is one of Jane Austen's stories that very few readers may have encountered before. Austen experts feel that this story was written, like many others, only for the pleasure of her family and friends. It is scribbled across three notebooks, in childish handwriting, and the complete work is thought to have been written over a period of six or seven years. It is dedicated to one of her cousins, whom she was very close to, Eliza de Feuillide...

Lady Susan by Jane Austen Lady Susan

An epistolary novel, Lady Susan is an early work by Austen that was posthumously published in 1871. The short novel focuses on the self-serving eponymous anti-heroine, as she cunningly maneuvers her way through society in search of a wealthy husband for both her daughter and herself. Disregarding anything but her own selfish goals, Susan employs her charms to lure men and draw them into her web of deceit, no matter their age or status. Exploring issues including morals, manners, self-indulgence, malevolence, and social machinations, the relatively short novel is sure to fascinate with its atypical form...

By: Jean Webster (1867-1916)

Dear Enemy by Jean Webster Dear Enemy

Dear Enemy is the sequel to Jean Webster’s novel Daddy-Long-Legs. The story as presented in a series of letters written by Sallie McBride, Judy Abbott’s college mate in Daddy-Long-Legs. Among the recipients of the letters are the president of the orphanage where Sallie is filling in until a new director can be installed, his wife (Judy Abbott of Daddy-Long-Legs), and the orphanage’s doctor (to whom Sallie addresses her letters: “Dear Enemy”).

By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Book cover The Sorrows of Young Werther

The Sorrows of Young Werther (German, Die Leiden des jungen Werther, originally published as Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. The story follows the life and sorrows of Werther after he falls desperately in love with a young woman who is married to another. A climactic scene prominently features Goethe's own German translation of a portion of James Macpherson's Ossian cycle of poems, which had originally been presented as translations of ancient works, and was later found to have been written by Macpherson. (Introduction by Wikipedia and Barry Eads)

By: John Muir (1838-1914)

Book cover Letters to a Friend, Written to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, 1866-1879

When John Muir was a student in the University of Wisconsin he was a frequent caller at the house of Dr. Ezra S. Carr. The kindness shown him there, and especially the sympathy which Mrs. Carr, as a botanist and a lover of nature, felt in the young man's interests and aims, led to the formation of a lasting friendship. He regarded Mrs. Carr, indeed, as his "spiritual mother," and his letters to her in later years are the outpourings of a sensitive spirit to one who he felt thoroughly understood and sympathized with him...

By: Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856-1923)

Penelope's English Experiences by Kate Douglas Wiggin Penelope's English Experiences

Penelope's English Experiences is a fictional travelogue, which documents the experiences of three American ladies on a visit to England. Included are scenes in London and the village of Belvern, containing fanciful sketches of a West-end ball, portraits of domestic originals, etc., characterized by humorous trifling and droll exaggeration of English traits. By the author Mother Carey's Chickens, A Cathedral Courtship, etc.

By: Laurence Alma-Tadema (1865?-1940)

Book cover The Wings of Icarus Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher

By: Lucian of Samosata (120—180)

Trips to the Moon by Lucian of Samosata Trips to the Moon

The endeavour of small Greek historians to add interest to their work by magnifying the exploits of their countrymen, and piling wonder upon wonder, Lucian first condemned in his Instructions for Writing History, and then caricatured in his True History, wherein is contained the account of a trip to the moon, a piece which must have been enjoyed by Rabelais, which suggested to Cyrano de Bergerac his Voyages to the Moon and to the Sun, and insensibly contributed, perhaps, directly or through Bergerac, to the conception of Gulliver’s Travels. The Icaro-Menippus Dialogue describes another trip to the moon, though its satire is more especially directed against the philosophers.

By: M. I. Mayfield

Book cover On Handling the Data

By: Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again by Mark Twain Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again

This satire on the U.S.A.'s myth of being the "Home of the Oppressed, where all men are free and equal", is unrelenting in its pursuit of justice through exposure. It draws a scathingly shameful portrait of how Chinese immigrants were treated in 19th century San Francisco. (Introduction by John Greenman)

Book cover Letters of Mark Twain, Complete

These letters were arranged in two volumes by Albert Bigelow Paine, Samuel L. Clemens's literary executor, as a supplement to Mark Twain, A Biography, which Paine wrote. They are, for the most part, every letter written by Clemens known to exist at the time of their publication in 1917. They begin with a fragment of a letter from teenaged Sam Clemens to his sister, Pamela, and conclude with a letter to his attorney two weeks before his death. These letters give us some degree of insight into the evolution of Twain's style of speech and prose over the period of his lifetime; they are a small window into the psyche that created the various characters of his stories...

By: Mary Owens Crowther

Book cover How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence

By: Maurice Baring (1874-1945)

Book cover Lost Diaries

Within these pages find passages from the "lost diaries" of a wide range of people: royal, regular, famous, infamous, historical, and fictional. - Summary by A. Gramour

By: Peter Abelard (1079-1142)

The Story of My Misfortunes by Peter Abelard The Story of My Misfortunes

Autobiographies from remote historical periods can be especially fascinating. Modes of self-presentation vary greatly across the centuries, as of course does the very concept of Self. Peter Abelard, the medieval philosopher and composer, here gives a concise but vivid survey of his notoriously calamitous life. The work is couched in the form of a letter to an afflicted friend. Abelard’s abrasively competitive, often arrogant personality emerges at once in the brief Foreword, where he informs his correspondent: “(I)n comparing your sorrows with mine, you may discover that yours are in truth nought.. and so shall you come to bear them the more easily.”

By: Roy Irving Murray

Book cover August First

By: Rupert Hughes (1872-1956)

Book cover Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas

By: Samuel Richardson

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

Now first Published In order to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the YOUTH of BOTH SEXES.A Narrative which has its Foundation in TRUTH and NATURE; and at the same time that it agreeably entertains, by a Variety of curious and affecting Incidents, is intirely divested of all those Images, which, in too many Pieces calculated for Amusement only, tend to inflame the Minds they should instruct.(From the frontspiece of the first edition)Pamela tells the story of a 14 year old lady’s maid named Pamela whose master, Mr...

Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady

Clarissa Harlowe, the tragic heroine of Clarissa, is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become very wealthy only in recent years and is now eager to become part of the aristocracy by acquiring estates and titles through advantageous pairings. Clarissa’s relatives attempt to force her to marry a rich but heartless man (Roger Solmes) against her will and, more importantly, against her own sense of virtue. Desperate to remain free, she is tricked by a young gentleman of her acquaintance, Lovelace, into escaping with him. However, she refuses to marry him, longing — unusual for a girl in her time — to live by herself in peace.

Book cover Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript

By: Sarah Fielding (1710-1768)

Book cover Remarks on Clarissa (1749)

By: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

Book cover Stark Munro Letters

"The letters of my friend Mr. Stark Munro appear to me to form so connected a whole, and to give so plain an account of some of the troubles which a young man may be called upon to face right away at the outset of his career, that I have handed them over to the gentleman who is about to edit them. There are two of them, the fifth and the ninth, from which some excisions are necessary; but in the main I hope that they may be reproduced as they stand. I am sure that there is no privilege which my friend...

By: Stuart Walcott (1896-1917)

Book cover Above the French Lines

A collection of letters written by Stuart Walcott while training to be an aviator in France to prepare for combat. Walcott died in his first aerial combat after first downing a German bi-plane. - Summary by KevinS

By: the Younger Pliny (62?-113)

Book cover Letters of the Younger Pliny, First Series — Volume 1

By: Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

Book cover Letters to His Children

The strong, vigorous, exalted character of a doting father who loved playing with his children and their pets, even while serving as the President of the United States, stands revealed in this selection of letters he wrote his children throughout their school years. They shed light on the cheerful man who remained throughout his life as pure and gentle as the soul of a child, plus many little reveals that there were squirrels nesting in the presidential bedroom, rats in the basement, and children's...

By: Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins The Woman in White

Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White tells the story of two half-sisters, Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe who were embroiled in the sinister plot of Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco to take over their family’s wealth. It’s considered to be one of the first “sensation novels” to be published. Like most novels that fall into this category, the protagonists here are pushed to their limits by the villains before they finally got the justice they deserved. The story begins with Walter Hartright helping a woman dressed in white who turned out to have escaped from a mental asylum...

The Black Robe by Wilkie Collins The Black Robe

The church has lost out on a valuable piece of land through wars and transfers. Father Benwell is determined to reclaim that property by the conversion of the owner, Lewis Romayne. Enter beautiful Stella, who captures the heart of Romayne. Should Stella capture the love and devotion of Romayne, Father Benwell's scheme would fail, and that is something that he can not allow. Complicating things is the fact that both Romayne and Stella are hiding their own terrible secrets.The Black Robe is an 1881 epistolary novel by famed English writer, Wilkie Collins. The book centers around the misadventures of Lewis Romayne, and is also noted for a perceived anti-Catholic bias

Book cover Queen of Hearts

The elderly Brothers Owen, Morgan and Griffith live a quiet, retired life in the countryside, which is turned upside-down by Griffith's ward, the young Jessie Yelverton. Originally, her visit to them was to last only six weeks, but for a very certain reason, the gentlemen must find a way to prolong her visit and get Jessie to stay for ten more days. To make her stay, they promise to tell her an entertaining and exciting story each night...

By: William Godwin (1756-1836)

Book cover Italian Letters, Vols. I and II The History of the Count de St. Julian

By: William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

Liber Amoris by William Hazlitt Liber Amoris

Liber Amoris is unlike anything Hazlitt wrote and probably like nothing you've come across before. On the face of it it tells the story of Hazlitt's infatuation with his landlords daughter. Hazlitt was middle aged and she young and pretty, a bit of a coquette from the sound of it. It turned out badly for Hazlitt and the book tells the story of this doomed love. Critics have always been divided about the merit of the piece. Even those who see its merit often feel more comfortable with his polished literary works, and perhaps rightly so...

By: William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

Book cover The Fitz-Boodle Papers

By: William Ware (1797-1852)

Book cover Zenobia or, the Fall of Palmyra
Book cover Aurelian or, Rome in the Third Century

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