THE INN BETWEEN NOVEL SERIES
John Cleland's early erotic novel Fanny Hill (1748) is written as a series of letters from the titular character to an unnamed recipient.
The epistolary novel as a genre became popular in the 18th century in the works of such authors as Samuel Richardson, with his immensely successful novels Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1749). The author furthermore explored a realm of intrigue with complex scenarios such as letters that fall into the wrong hands, faked letters, or letters withheld by protagonists. The novel shows the genre's results of changing perspectives: individual points were presented by the individual characters, and the central voice of the author and moral evaluation disappeared (at least in the first volume further volumes introduced a narrator). This work was published anonymously in three volumes (1684, 1685, and 1687), and has been attributed to Aphra Behn though its authorship remains disputed in the 21st Century. Perhaps first work to fully utilize the potential of an epistolary novel was Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister. Title page of Aphra Behn's early epistolary novel, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684) The founder of the epistolary novel in English is said by many to be James Howell (1594–1666) with "Familiar Letters" (1645–50), who writes of prison, foreign adventure, and the love of women. The immensely famous Letters of a Portuguese Nun ( Lettres portugaises) (1669) generally attributed to Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, comte de Guilleragues, though a small minority still regard Marianna Alcoforado as the author, is claimed to be intended to be part of a miscellany of Guilleragues prose and poetry. Within the successive editions of Edmé Boursault's Letters of Respect, Gratitude and Love ( Lettres de respect, d'obligation et d'amour) (1669), a group of letters written to a girl named Babet were expanded and became more and more distinct from the other letters, until it formed a small epistolary novel entitled Letters to Babet ( Lettres à Babet).
Other well-known examples of early epistolary novels are closely related to the tradition of letter-books and miscellanies of letters. 1485) by Diego de San Pedro, belongs to a tradition of novels in which a large number of inserted letters already dominated the narrative. The first truly epistolary novel, the Spanish "Prison of Love" ( Cárcel de amor) (c. The other theory claims that the epistolary novel arose from miscellanies of letters and poetry: some of the letters were tied together into a (mostly amorous) plot. The first claims that the genre is originated from novels with inserted letters, in which the portion containing the third-person narrative in between the letters was gradually reduced. There are two theories on the genesis of the epistolary novel. An important strategic device in the epistolary novel for creating the impression of authenticity of the letters is the fictional editor. It is thus able to demonstrate differing points of view without recourse to the device of an omniscient narrator.
The epistolary form can add greater realism to a story, because it mimics the workings of real life. In German, this type of novel is known as a Briefroman. The word epistolary is derived from Latin from the Greek word ἐπιστολή epistolē, meaning a letter (see epistle). More recently, epistolaries may include electronic documents such as recordings and radio, blog posts, and e-mails. The term is often extended to cover novels which intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered to include novels composed of documents even if they don't include letters at all. Title page of the second edition of Samuel Richardson's epistolary novel Pamela or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), a bestselling early epistolary novel which prompted artistic interest in the epistolary formĪn epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters.