Letter-Writing: Its Ethics and Etiquette, With Remarks On the Proper Use of Monograms, Crests and Seals

by Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Genres: Nonfiction

86 pages, Hardcover

First published May 22, 2010

Reviews

[Ruby Granger]

I just love reading about 19th Century etiquette and this was such a quick, interesting guide to letter-writing in 1890 America. Concise, easy to read but also pretty funny (retrospectively of course!), I would highly recommend this to anyone with similar interests :)

Oh, by the way, if you're struggling to find the book, this is where I read it: https://archive.org/details/cihm_1302... (it's pretty hard to find online but this archive offers free access!).

[Christina]

This is a really interesting little book. Letter writing has recently become more of a passion for me, and I wanted to know how they would have done it when it was the major form of non-verbal communication. It was like reading a piece of history. Very cool.

[Fadwa Fares]

I didn't think I'll have so much fun reading this little book. I just read it out of curiosity, and I'm glad I did!
This book is not only an instruction book about writing letters in the 19th century, it also reflects some of the important social values of the time. It's interesting to see how such values evolved and found their place in our daily lives.

The author's rants about bad spelling, crossing something in your letter and writing anonymous letters made me laugh – a lot:
“Bad spelling like bad grammar, is an offence against society.”
“Never cross your letters, in these days both paper and postage are cheap” ... I wonder what he would have thought about correction tape!
“Anonymous letters are an abomination. […] no respectable man or woman will ever write one. […] If you have anything to say to a person, say it over your own name or else leave it unsaid.”
Other remarks that were really interesting in the book were those about paying attention to politeness and 'good form' in your correspondence, some still exist in our modern-day correspondence i.e. texting and emailing, and some may need to come back into fashion. Just to mention a few:
“The wounds made by ill natured remarks in letters heal more slowly perhaps than any others.” We often talk about how social media affects our mental health because some people just don’t understand how much a word can do -in a positive and negative way. Our screens (perhaps just like letters) are becoming that medium between us and the others, which makes it easier to some people to say whatever they like, whenever they like. Words, however, still hit the same, or even stronger than they were intended to be.

The author also suggests that one should omit jokes from their letters and keep them for face-to-face communication because jokes in letters could easily be misinterpreted (thank god for emojis!) 😏

All of that being said, it’s a small book, very interesting to read. It takes you on a small journey to the 19th century, and it’s kind of fun to compare the etiquette of letter-writing back then with e-mailing rules nowadays and the (usually implicit) norms of texting and chatting.

[Caroline]

Thoroughly enjoyable read. I expected it to be quite dry but it was entertaining and actually interesting. Would highly recommend.

[Mohammed Essellami]

Such an enjoyable informative light read.

[Elle VP]

Read this after it was recommended to me. Expected it to be a bit dull, but it was very entertaining and interesting. Will probably keep this at hand the next time I write a letter (lol).

[Lexi]

2.5 ⭐️

[Andrea]

Un agile volumetto che presenta la "good form" per scrivere lettere in maniera corretta.
Il "Letter-writing" è un'arte ormai estinta, soppiantata da SMS e WhatsApp. Forse, però, non sarebbe una cattiva idea riprendere a scrivere qualche lettera ogni tanto.