"I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer": Letters on Love and Marriage from the World’s First Personal Advice Column

by Mary Beth Norton

A fascinating collection of questions and answers—about courtship, marriage, love, and sex—from a seventeenth-century periodical

The Athenian Mercury—a one-page, two-sided periodical published in 1690s London—included the world’s first personal advice column. Acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prize–finalist Mary Beth Norton’s “I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer” is a remarkable collection of questions and answers drawn from this groundbreaking publication.

In these exchanges, anonymous readers look for help with their most intimate romantic problems—about courting, picking a spouse, getting married, securing or avoiding parental consent, engaging in premarital sex and extramarital affairs, and much more. Spouses ask how to handle contentious marriages and tense relationships with in-laws. Some correspondents seek ways to ease a conscience troubled by romantic and sexual misbehavior. The lonely wonder how to meet a potential partner—or how to spark a warmer relationship with someone they already have an eye on. And both men and women inquire about how to extract themselves from relationships turned sour. Many of these concerns will be familiar to readers of today’s advice columns. But others are delightfully strange and surprising, reflecting forgotten social and romantic customs and using charmingly unfamiliar language in which, for example, “kissing is a luscious diet,” a marriage might provide “much love and moderate conveniency,” and an “amorous disposition” can lead to trouble.

Delightful and entertaining, “I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer” provides a unique, intriguing, and revealing picture of what has—and hasn’t—changed over the past three centuries when it comes to love, sex, and relationships.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Historical

216 pages, Hardcover

First published April 22, 2025

Reviews

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

Some interesting stuff in here, but quite repetitive.

[Stuart Endick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer is a fascinating and entertaining glimpse into the social history of late Seventeenth Century England. The book is based on selections from the Athenian Mercury, a penny broadsheet published in the 1690’s originally for coffee house patrons that purported to use a panel of learned experts (in reality the publisher assisted by two cronies, a clergyman and a mathematics professor) to answer questions on a range of topics. Correspondence soon flooded in from around the country often seeking advice on questions of courtship, marriage, and sexual entanglements, similar to a modern advice column. The “Athenians” relied on their notions of religion, law (not as fixed concerning marriage as in latter periods), and custom for answers. Like many of today’s columns the responses were tartly judgmental, predictable, and in some cases cringingly wrongheaded. The letter writers who seem to represent a broad segment of society from gentlefolk to trades people of both sexes, although preoccupied by concerns over social standing and income, also appear in many cases to be sympathetic (or pitiable), which adds to the book’s charm. This was an illuminating and rewarding read.

[Brad Eastman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an intriguing volume of selections from the world's first known self-help column. Think Dear Abby in the age of Louis IV. The letters were written to The Athenian in the 1690s in London - the age of coffee houses, the rise of British empire and naval power and the start of a worldwide revolution in finance. The Athenian was published weekly, The letters in this volume are about dating, marriage, love and sex and the answers reflect the changing times from an aristocracy where marriage was undertaken for wealth preservation and a free market merchant economy where notions of individualism encouraged marrying for love. The questions and answers reflect the tension between these ideas. The letters also reflect more agency on the part of women, then you would have guessed at the time.

The concept is interesting and the letters can be insightful and fun. However, there is a lot of repetition and very little analysis. Ms. Norton has almost published a source book rather than a history. More context would have been welcomed.

[Amber Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dull and repetitive. So many letters included here were just variations of the exact same thing and it wasn't interesting to read. I forced myself to finish it.

[History Today]

Pleas for advice seem to be everywhere these days, from the pages of long-established ‘agony aunts’ like ‘Miss Manners’ and ‘Dear Prudence’ (with a rotating cast of advisers behind them) to specialised columns on parenting, money, jobs, flatmate disputes, and more. House and Garden’s ‘Fiona’ will tell you what to do if your husband’s family heirlooms do not match your decorating aesthetic, and it is surely only a matter of time before this magazine begins addressing its readers’ history-related dilemmas.

Then there are the viral screenshotted posts from Reddit and elsewhere, demonstrating the depths of human pettiness and depravity in all manner of situations. In their case, the focus is not so much on advice as on the debates which ensue between commenters. The fundamental question, am I being unreasonable?, implies a normative standard of reasonable behaviour that the resulting discussion often disproves.

According to I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer, all of this began in the late 17th century with the publication of the Athenian Mercury. A broadsheet appearing twice a week between 1691 and 1697, it consisted entirely of answers to anonymous reader queries sent in by the new medium of the penny post. Sold by ‘Mercury-women’, the sheets would be read and discussed in coffeehouses before being compiled into omnibus volumes, and then anthologised in book form as The Athenian Oracle (1704).

Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...

Natasha Simonova writes on 18th-century literature.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I read about history, I’m generally reading about life in chaotic times: wars, plagues, political upheaval. I marvel at humanity’s ability to survive, innovate, and adapt things that I never could. Reading Mary Beth Norton’s new book, I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer: Letters on Love and Marriage from the World’s First Personal Advice Column, offers something entirely different. Rather than providing stories that show how much people have had to change, the letters from The Athenian Mercury (1690-1697) reveal just how much we have stayed the same...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.

[Kate Vogl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have enjoyed more of her insights on the context of the day. Though apparently Prof. Norton instead chose to let the letters speak more on their own. All in all, an interesting read! I laughed out loud at certain parts – especially to read their insights regarding the colonies. And divorce. And sly references to “becoming too well acquainted” with someone outside of marriage.

So … misogyny hasn’t changed much. Seems the more things change the more things stay the same.

Fun to read this latest by a former professor of mine.

[Dick Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dear Abby in the 1600's, it just shows that not much changes. The answers given show a much greater respect for and belief in the church, which we could use today.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

So hilarious and juicy. Londoners in the 1690s were MESSY. Would have loved to hear more background and commentary from Mary Beth, but I get that she was just the editor.