I’m still thinking about books, both fiction and non-fiction, that are a series of letters telling a story or history, or even just reporting information from the sender to the receiver.
There are two types of letters sent, particularly in the past. The first were private letters, meant for the eyes of the receiver only. The second and more common type were public or open letters for sharing with others. An example of the latter is the Epistles in the New Testament, particularly Epistles of Paul.
Private or Closed Letters
Private letters were often secrets shared between lovers, diplomats, and statesmen. It won’t be a surprise to history lovers that private letters were intercepted by spies and even other diplomats, copied for the content, and then resealed and sent on to the next stop along the way until reaching the intended receiver. Some involved military actions, others diplomatic plots of some sort.
I am most interested in letters intercepted by officers, both British and Colonial, during the Revolutionary War. General Washington had quite a spy network, the Culper Ring based in Manhattan and on Long Island, specifically in Setauket. He was desperately trying to get ahead of the British Army.
Individuals on both sides of the war intercepted missives sending information about troop movements, supply shipments, and even the movement of ships to and from harbors. Both sides coded their letters, attempting to leave false trails for the other side to follow.
These were definitely private letters. You can read more about George Washington and the Culper Spy Ring: About the Culper Spy Ring here: https://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/c.php?g=35445&p=5548363.
There are several books on the topic including Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose, George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spy Ring that Saved the American Revolution by Brian Kilmeade, and see watch the AMC TV series “TURN” https://youtu.be/Apj6AG0saD0.
Public Letters
We encounter public letters between philosophers, religious thinkers and leaders, politicians, and heads of state who wished to instruct or inform the receiver. These letters were read out at court, at meals, and at meetings. The contents were shared with everyone in the room.
In many cases, the letters were published, annotated, and subsequently passed down to the next generation. We are fortunate to have so many of these public letters as the writers provide information about events of the day, important changes and decisions made about laws, politics, and religious beliefs. These formal letters are essential for our understanding religious and political changes, and even scientific discoveries in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Early Modern Periods. Even today, there are “letters” to the editor, to the science community, and public letters found in newspapers.
The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies (also known as the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies) is a prime example of missives or reports from the battlefield. They were sent between officers and generals describing actions in battle, plans to move, and commendations to officers who were breveted (moved up in rank on the field or informally). After the Civil War the missives were collected and organized chronologically and by geographic location. From 1880-1901, the US Congress paid to have the Government Printing Office (now the Government Publishing Office) publish the 130 volumes which include an atlas and the index. These letters are of great interest to historians of warfare and of the Civil War and genealogists. They’ve been reprinted in paper several times, then on microfiche, and finally digitized by several organizations including Cornell University under the Making of America grant http://collections.library.cornell.edu/moa_new/waro.html, transcribed at The Ohio State University https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records, and made available to the public at HathiTrust https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000625514.
Letters were also written to family member far away, meant for sharing news from home with those who immigrated to a new country, county, or state. Letters could take a while to make their way across the ocean, mountains, or prairie. These letters were written in a more informal style to share news, happy and sad.
Today, we write e-mails and texts. They are mostly private, to be shared between sender and receiver.
Letters continue to fascinate me. I’ve found about two dozen books comprised of letters in my personal library. Some are fiction with a detailed eye toward events. Others are -fiction shedding light on events or the thoughts of the writer. How many books written as a series of letters do you have?
More on this topic, focusing on fiction next time.
