If you've read his histories of cartography and typography, you'll know what you're in for here. A good popular overview, with interesting examples and some humorous banter. Decent. ( )

Overall, I enjoyed this fun and very thorough look into the history of letter writing. It's definitely a book that got better as it went along. Surprisingly, some of the historical bits got a little dry. The more ancient examples bored me but as the letter writing history became more modern, I became more intrigued.

The history of letter writing manuals was interesting, though I tend to agree with Montaigne that copying a prescribed style seems inauthentic. I also found it so interesting that people used to write on different parts of the paper, depending on their social status---or use crosshatches around their notes to make sure they weren't added to nefariously. Brilliant.

I thinks it's neat that finding letters can confirm history; such as the one confirming the 1914 Christmas truce football game. I'd read somewhere in the last few years that it was thought to have been legend---yet here we have a letter discussing it.

Naturally, in a book this long, I took offense at several parts. I disagree that the New Testament letters were merely "open letters" to a vague public. Each NT letter was written by someone who knew his recipients personally and felt a moral responsibility to them, as well as a deep friendship. These were letters from ones in relationships---much more than "unperformed speeches". Just because these are now used in sermons doesn't meant that was the original intent.

I also didn't appreciate his (seemingly ignorant) remarks against Jane Austen---for her sake, of course. She spent most of her time at home and interacted with the same people from week to week. What does he expect from her but "dull" notes about daily life? Also there is nothing wrong with crossed letters. I've written and received them on more than one occasion and they're not as difficult to read as one might assume. In fact, the middle and lower middle classes who were likely the main groups writing these probably thought them as fun and challenging to read as I do.

I thought it must have been quite fun deciphering mail at the Dead Letter Office... I wonder when and if this has stopped being a thing?

The correspondence between Chris and Bessie sprinkled throughout was a great addition. I was hoping for a happy ending.

All in all, I'm glad I read this quite exhaustive tome. I love writing and receiving handwritten letters and keep correspondence with quite a few fellow letter-writers. In fact, I even run a letter writing group called The Victorian Letter Writers Guild---but you'll have to look me up by 21st century means to find out more! ( )

nonfiction - history of letter writing from ancient Romans to the present, with lots of excerpts from various letters in history.

not as interesting as I'd hoped, I quit at p. 86. ( )

This has been languishing in my pile of books for weeks now. Picked it up, put it down, read a little, skimmed a little, flipped through the rest of the pages in case something caught my eye. It has its interesting bits but it is TOO long for someone with only a casual and not a scholarly interest in letter-writing.

Good ( )