Rowe, Elizabeth - Robert Adams Day (essay date 1966)
Robert Adams Day (essay date 1966)
SOURCE: "The Epistolary Novel Arrives," in Told in Letters: Epistolary Fiction Before Richardson, The University of Michigan Press, 1966, pp. 146–91.
[In the following excerpt from a study of epistolary fiction, Day characterizes Rowe's writings as a combination of the miscellany collection and works of moral instruction.]
The pen is almost as pretty an implement in a woman's fingers, as a needle.
—Samuel Richardson (to Lady Bradshaigh)
When the Portuguese Letters appeared in English in 1678, they did more than popularize a style of epistolary expression. L'Estrange's book introduced the English public to a new departure in fiction—a long, complex story told (or suggested) in letters alone. Five years later came Part I of Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, the first original English...
[The entire page is 3232 words long]
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