The converse of the pen : acts of intimacy in the eighteenth-century familiar letter /

A readable book about the long-lost minor art form of the familiar letter, The Converse of the Pen treats several of the 18th century's more successful practitioners. Six writers are included, with excerpts from their letters. One, Lady Mary Montagu, is best remembered as a letter writer, but the others are known first as poets (William Cowper, Thomas Gray) or prose writers (Horace Walpole, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson). Redford sees the familiar letter as an ``act of intimacy,'' and he has chosen the letters to explicate the specific, if not always stated, purposes of the letter writers. The book provides expert analysis of the genre, with the necessary background for each set of letters, so it can both appeal to the specialist and also introduce the familiar letter to the unfamiliar reader. The writing being smooth and the apparatus unobtrusive, this book is easily accessible to anyone interested in its topic. Although serious scholars will always choose to read the whole of any writer's letters for themselves, Redford's choices are appropriate and his editing is skillful. Undergraduates as well as graduate students and faculty can use the book.-T.S. Kobler, Texas Woman's University