Review
"Thomas O. Beebee's Epistolary Fiction in Europe 1500-1850 is a vital contribution to literary history and to studies of genre and narrative...Epistolary Fiction in Europe is an impressive achievement...I especially admired his ability to synthesize and contextualize literary history, feminist theory, and critical theory in a compelling, erudite, and indispensible study." Comparative Literature
"Beebee's is a very dense and informative study, which also offers some real gems of literary interpretation, presented almost casually along the way...an important resource for anyone intersted in the cultural and literary history of letters." L'Esprit Créateur
"In Epistolary Fictin in Europe, 1500-1850, Tomas O. Beebee offers a fascinating and theoretically sophisticated analysis..." Studies in English Literature
"Indispenable...The research that has gone into this book is remarkable." The Comparatist
Product Description
Thomas O. Beebee examines epistolary fiction as a major phenomenon in Europe from the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century. His study is the first to consider epistolary fiction as a pan-European form of importance to all major European languages. It demonstrates that such fiction can be found everywhere, not just in texts aimed specifically at aesthetic consumption. Beebee begins with the premise that the letter was a Protean form which crystallized social relationships in a variety of ways, and that fictional uses of the letter appropriated the status and power the letter had already acquired from its established functions within other discursive practices. He discusses the letter-writing manual, self-referential aspects of the letter, news and travel reporting, the relationship between letters and gender, and historically specific use of epistolarity by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors including Austen, Balzac and Dostoevsky. The book also offers a bibliography of major European epistolary fiction to 1850.
