The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800
Susan Whyman
Mar 2011 · OUP Oxford
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About this ebook
Susan Whyman draws on a hidden world of previously unknown letter writers to explore bold new ideas about the history of writing, reading and the novel. Capturing actual dialogues of people discussing subjects as diverse as marriage, poverty, poetry, and the emotional lives of servants, The Pen and the People will be enjoyed by everyone interested in history, literature, and the intimate experiences of ordinary people. Based on over thirty-five previously unknown letter collections, it tells the stories of workers and the middling sort - a Yorkshire bridle maker, a female domestic servant, a Derbyshire wheelwright, an untrained woman writing poetry and short stories, as well as merchants and their families. Their ordinary backgrounds and extraordinary writings challenge accepted views that popular literacy was rare in England before 1800. This democratization of letter writing could never have occurred without the development of the Royal Mail. Drawing on new information gleaned from personal letters, Whyman reveals how the Post Office had altered the rhythms of daily life long before the nineteenth century. As the pen, the post, and the people became increasingly connected, so too were eighteenth-century society and culture slowly and subtly transformed.
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About the author
Susan E. Whyman returned to the academic world after a career that encompassed the publishing, editing, and library professions. Her academic degrees include a BA in History from Mt. Holyoke College, magna cum laude and a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science from Rutgers, the State University. She received both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in British History from Princeton University. At Princeton, she taught and did her graduate work with Professor Lawrence Stone. She has been a visiting scholar at Wadham College, Oxford and received a Huntington Library fellowship in San Marino, California. Whyman has been an annual visitor to England since the early 1970s. Presently, she spends time in Princeton and Oxford, England as an independent historian.
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