The Color Purple | Literary Precedents
As noted above, the epistolary format owes much to the example of English novelist Samuel Richardson. Further, as various critics have pointed out, it is their letters and diaries which have enabled contemporary historians to reconstruct the private lives of women before the late nineteenth century when, for the first time, the literary marketplace became receptive to "female scribblers." These most intimate of literary genres are thus often identified as the forte of women, and in particular of women who, like Celie, have no other outlets for their emotions and creativity.
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