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Letter (message)

Written message from one to another

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Lab · Class 6–12Writing & Editing

History of letter writing

Ancient history

Historically, letters have existed from ancient India, ancient Egypt and Sumer, through Rome, Greece and China, up to the present day. During the 17th and 18th centuries, letters were used to self-educate. The main purposes of letters were to send information, news and greetings. For some, letters were a way to practice critical reading, self-expressive writing, polemical writing and also exchange ideas with like-minded others. For some people, letters were seen as a written performance. Letters make up several of the books of the Bible. Archives of correspondence, whether for personal, diplomatic, or business reasons, serve as primary sources for historians. At certain times, the writing of letters was thought to be an art form and a genre of literature, for instance in Byzantine epistolography.

In the ancient world letters might be written on various different materials, including metal, lead, wax-coated wooden tablets, pottery fragments, animal skin, and papyrus. From Ovid, we learn that Acontius used an apple for his letter to Cydippe. More recently, letters have mainly been written on paper: handwritten and more recently typed.

Medieval history

Historians of the medieval period often study family letter collections, which gather the personal and business correspondence of a group of related people and shed light on their daily life. The Paston Letters (1425 – 1520 CE) are widely studied for insight into life in Britain during the Wars of the Roses. Other major medieval family letter collections include the Stonor Letters (1420 – 1483 CE), Plumpton letters (1416 – 1552 CE), and Cely Letters (1472-1488 CE).

1700s

During the 1700s, called the "Great Age of Letter Writing", the epistolary novel became a hugely popular genre and came from the format of letters. The novel also debuted in the 1600s with Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister. Letter writers used this to communicate and explore their identity and daily life at the time. As a medium of writing that lies ambiguously between the public and private worlds, letters provide an appealing peek into other people's thoughts, feelings, and lives. During this historical period, publishing these "private" letters so they could build and preserve literary prominence became common for the first time. Just as social media streams now allow modern celebrities to present versions of their intimate lives for the public to see and read all about, so did early modern and 18th-century figures carefully build themselves in their letters for audiences to be excited to read these works of literature. In the 1700s, readers frequently associated personal letters with the ideals of honesty and truth.

Writing in the 1700s was a rough process that required a lot of materials, many of which were difficult or expensive to get. Researchers interested in the links and connections between migrants, settlers, and refugees have increasingly concentrated on letters and their purposes. Surprisingly, academics only began examining letters as artifacts in the late 1900s. Most studies continue to focus on the national course of epistolary novels.

Letters also offer information on changing conceptions of privacy, secrecy, and trust during a period of widespread censorship, especially in war. Lastly, study on letter writing and mail services culture exposes the economic and technical roots of letter writing, as well as how links required resources ranging from writing tables and ink to postal employees and ships to carry letters over the world. A lot of letters that were written in this time also showed up in a popular magazine called The Gentleman's Magazine. People were also charged for postage during this time. They either had to pay before or during transit. Writers took great caution in their number of pages so they did not have to pay so much. These writers were considered very clever in their way to avoid the overcharge.

Letter writing became an important pastime for many, particularly women. Writing letters provided women with an opportunity to express themselves, to share thoughts and ideas, as well as to build their own identity and voice in society. The popularity of letter writing was also reflected in literature, particularly through the epistolary novel. One of the well known examples from this period was Clarissa Harlowe, whose story is told largely through letters. Even after the epistolary novel's popularity was at the decline, letter writing remained an important form of communication. It gave many, especially women a voice when there were limited opportunities to express themselves.

Alexander Pope was the first English writer to publish from his own letters during his lifetime, putting out a new example for authors and other important people's epistolary works. Pope recognized that writings may reflect both personal religious devotion and cleverness. Pope's works are lacking in formality and informality. He had written his letters all about his life and what he did. Pope also wrote about his friends and the health and work of them. "All the pleasure of using familiar letters is to give us the assurance of a friend's welfare," Pope said. He had also taken to describing himself as "a mortal enemy and despiser of what they call fine letters." There was a letter addressed to Pope's father that ended up being used as writing paper for the Iliad. When Alexander Pope's letters were published, they were widely read by a number of people.

In the United States, letters experienced a boost in popularity after the Postal Act of 1845 decreased the price of sending letters and when paper started being made with wood pulp.

Letters as historical source material

Due to the timelessness and universality of letter writing, extant letters from earlier eras constitute an important category of source material in historiography (the methodology of historians).

There is a wealth of letters and instructional materials (for example, manuals, as in the medieval ars dictaminis) on letter writing throughout history. The study of letter writing usually involves both the study of rhetoric and grammar.

Letters were often subject to state censorship and confiscation. Private letters preserved in state archives tell not only what the author intended but also how the letter's purported content was interpreted by state officials. In some cases, the confiscation of letters led to increased censorship, like bans on correspondence and migration.

Declining use

Letters were a chief form of communication, in both personal and business communications, for many centuries before telegraphy, telephony, and Internet communications reduced their primacy. Even in times and places where literacy was lower, illiterate people could pay literate ones to write letters to, and to read letters from, distant correspondents. Even in the era of telegrams and telephones, letters remained quite important until fax and email further eroded their primacy, especially since the turn of the 21st century.

As communication technology has developed in recent history, posted letters on paper have become less important as a routine form of communication. For example, the development of the telegraph drastically shortened the time taken to send a communication, by sending it between distant points as an electrical signal. At the telegraph office closest to the destination, the signal was converted back into writing on paper and delivered to the recipient. The next step was the telex which avoided the need for local delivery. Then followed the fax (facsimile) machine: a letter could be transferred from the sender to the receiver through the telephone network as an image. These technologies did not displace physical letters as the primary route for communication. However today, the Internet, by means of email, plays the main role in written communications, together with text messages. These email communications are not generally referred to as letters but rather as e-mail (or email) messages, messages or simply emails or e-mails, with the term "letter" generally being reserved for communications on paper.

On March 6, 2025, PostNord announced that all letter mail deliveries will cease in Denmark by the end of 2025, citing a 90% decline in letter mail since 2000.

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