Epistolary Novels

NW Okie (that's me, Linda) is working on an "epistolary novel" of NW Oklahoma, using documents of facts on a true story. It will be an epistolary novel of fiction, though, using my creative literary license to fill in the blanks and connect things together. BUT … more about this novel later on.

As we described in an earlier newsletter issue, an epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.

The word epistolary comes from the Latin word epistle, meaning a letter. It is written that the epistolary form can add greater realism and verisimilitude to a story, chiefly because it mimics the workings of real life. It is thus able to demonstrate differing points of view without recourse to the device of an omniscient narrator.

There are two theories on the genesis of the epistolary novel. The first claims that the genre originated from novels with inserted letters, in which the portion containing the third person narrative in between the letters was gradually reduced.

The other theory claims that the epistolary novel arose from miscellanies of letters and poetry; some of the letters were tied together into a plot.

Both claims have some validity. The first truly epistolary novel, the Spanish "Prison of Love", c. 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 founder of the epistolary novel in English is said by many to be James Howell (1594-1666) with "Familiar Letters", who writes of prison, foreign adventure, and twelve of women.

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 (1741)" and "Clarissa (1749)".

The first North American novel, The History of Emily Montague (1769) by Frances Brooke was written in epistolary form.

It was later in the 18th century, the epistolary form was subject to much ridicule, resulting in a number of savage burlesques. The epistolary novel slowly fell out of use in the late 18th entry.

Although, Jane Austen tried her hand at the epistolary in juvenile writings and her novella, Lady Susan, she abandoned this structure for her later work. It is thought that her lost novel, First Impressions, which was redrafted to become Pride and Prejudice, may have been epistolary. Pride and Prejudice contains an unusual number of letters quoted in full and some play a critical role in the plot.
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