Emotions and the Letter: A History from Antiquity to the Present

From hate mail to suicide notes to begging letters, this book explores the relationship between letter writing and emotion through case studies from antiquity to the 21st century. It shows how the epistolary form has offered a wide range of ways to communicate private feelings, make public statements and offers a rich historical source to explore how people have performed emotions for a range of audiences.

Emotions and the Letter shows how this long-standing historical source can provide insights into a diversity of emotion traditions. Uses of the letter in different periods and its emotional potential reflect important interactions between individuals and society, private and public, aesthetics and authenticity. Applying approaches and methods from the history of emotions, literary studies and affect studies, this collection significantly advances our understanding of why letters remain a critical mode of communication and explores how to analyse letters for historical emotions research.