The Epistolary Novel

Encoded Values

epistolary example

Some of Richardson’s most famous works, such as Pamela, are written in the epistolary form. The Oxford English Dictionary gives this definition for the term epistolary: “Contained in letters; of the nature of letters; carried on by letters.” Richardson’s choice in writing a novel composed entirely of letters implies more than just a penchant for an exploratory writing style. The letter’s use, physical form and properties allows for different plot twists and values to be made of characters, especially female characters.

The very act of letter writing and reading provides entertainment and drama within the text of Pamela. Pamela refuses Mr. B’s advances, and thus possessing and reading Pamela’s letters becomes a substitute for possessing Pamela’s physical body. The relationship between the two physical objects is emphasized when Mr. B searches Pamela’s body for her letters: “For I will see these papers. But, perhaps…they are tied about your knees with your garters” (271). Not only in Pamela is the letter a synecdoche for male and female relationships. Favret states that the letter is feminized because it is so private and domestic: “The letter typically registered private, interiorized moments – domestic details” (12). The private self exposed within a letter is now available for consumption, either by those whom the letter is addressed to, or others who waylay it. Just as Pamela is isolated in Mr. B’s country manor, Favret states that other women in the eighteenth century were often alone, separated from the larger society and other women (35). This left letter writing as a crucial form of correspondence and strongly identified with the domestic and feminine sphere.

In the eighteenth century, letters were not only used for personal correspondence and as a form of the novel, but also as a way to provide lessons of conduct for women. Often, these manuals were written by men on the proper behavior of women; this relationship emphasizes the “subjection to regulation” letters are under (Watson 69). Watson asks who has the power to write, edit and publish letters, especially when the subject matter pertains to the education of women. Within Richardson’s novel, Pamela receives moral advice from her father in letter form: “It may be presumptuous to trust too much to your own strength…the devil may put it into his head to use some stratagem…to decoy you” (59).

By writing an epistolary novel, Richardson not only conveys conservative judgments on the roles of women and their symbolic and literal regulation by men. Richardson is able, through the form of his epistolary novels, to write “to the moment” (Favret 149). This allows for a great amount of detail, both of extraordinary events and everyday happenings. When reading a novel composed of letters, one may also feel that he/she is privy to the true musings of a character’s heart, a sentimental value useful for both selling novels and conveying moral values.

The epistolary novel was a popular form in the eighteenth century, this contributed to both the feminization of the novel as a whole and the positive moral consequences arising from reading such a text.

Richardson and The Middle Class | The Epistolary Novel | Works Cited

Website created by Taylor Cooper, Emilee Johnson, and Jenny Plaster for Professor Tonya Howe

English 335, The 18th Century British Novel: Texts and Contexts, Washington and Lee University