Letter collection

Usually, the original letters are written over the course of the lifetime of an important individual, noted either for their social position or their intellectual influence, and consist of messages to specific recipients.

[4] Letter collections have existed as a form of literature in most times and places where letter-writing played a prominent part of public life.

"[6] Particularly popular were letter collections focused on the private lives of their writers, which would garner praise based on how well they could demonstrate the personal character of the author.

[7] Stylistically, eighteenth-century familiar letters were influenced more by the amusing Vincent Voiture (1597–1648) than the formal classics of Cicero, Pliny, and Seneca.

[2] Many eighteenth-century figures gained their reputations as eloquent writers primarily through their letters, such as the bluestockings Elizabeth Montagu and Mary Delany.

Some nineteenth-century authors, such as Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton, first had their letters published in the twentieth century as scholarly editions.

Major collections by twentieth-century authors include those of Joseph Conrad, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf.

In this distinction, real missives could be used as evidence of factual events, while literary letters required interpretation as works of art.