Susan Whyman draws on a hidden world of previously unknown letter writers to explore bold new ideas about the history of writing, reading, and the novel. Capturing actual dialogues of people discussing subjects as diverse as marriage, poverty, poetry, and the emotional lives of servants, The Pen and the People will be enjoyed by everyone interested in history, literature, and the intimate experiences of ordinary people. Based on over sixty previously unknown collections of family papers, it tells the stories of workers and the middling sort: a Yorkshire bridle maker, a female domestic servant, a Derbyshire wheelwright, an untrained woman writing poetry and short stories, as well as merchants and their families. Their ordinary backgrounds and extraordinary writings challenge accepted views that popular literacy was rare in England before 1800. This democratization of letter writing could never have occurred without the development of the Royal Mail. Drawing on new information gleaned from personal letters, Susan Whyman reveals how the Post Office had altered the rhythms of daily life long before the nineteenth century. As the pen, the post, and the people became increasingly connected, so too was eighteenth-century society and culture slowly and subtly transformed.

About the Author
Susan E. Whyman returned to the academic world after a career that encompassed the publishing, editing, and library professions. She received both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in British History from Princeton University. She is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society has been a visiting scholar at Wadham College, Oxford and the Huntington Library, San Marino California. Whyman lectures and publishes widely, both in England and the U.S., on letters and British Culture.

Reviews
The book is triumphantly successful. Our understanding of the culture and mentality of late Stuart and Georgian England is both broader and deeper after her work...a highly satisfying book. * Anthony Fletcher, History *
Impressive...breaks significant new ground. * History Today *
The originality of The Pen and the People lies in the cavalcade of writers used by Whyman to reclaim a vanished social world. * Amanda Vickery, London Review of Books *
Engaging...[and] provocative... The striking case studies of The Pen and the People, as well as the substantial archival body out of which they emerge, will certainly require a revision of the history of eighteenth-century literacy. In addition, for scholars of the period's popular and literary print cultures, new and important questions have been raised about the role of the pen and the many humble people who wielded it in disseminating and shaping those cultures. * Betty A. Schellenberg, Huntington Library Quarterly *
Whyman's work is important for challenging established views on popular literacy in the period. She is to be commended for the conscientious, exhaustive nature of her research...Whyman has uncovered valuable family archives...which 'give voice' to the historically obscure and with a thrilling immediacy as, through these documents penned with no thought of publication, we are allowed the illicit pleasure of eavesdropping on words not meant for our ears, of glimpsing the lives of individuals who lived over two hundred years ago. * Wendy Jones Nakanishi, English Studies *
This is a fascinating book. Susan Whyman is to be applauded for following one excellent social history with another. * Rosemary O'Day, Journal of British Studies *
Important...exceedingly well researched...valuable * Gary Schneider, Reviews in History *
A richly researched book...Whyman has woven a history of the importance of letter writing at this time, and a portrait of a people being formed through a democratizing popular culture of letter writing. * Mary O'Connor, Review of English Studies *
As with Whyman's earlier book of the Verney family ... the strength of this one lies in the detailed and imaginative exposition of documentary sources, the close reading of texts, and the sympathetic engagement with people who are brought to life either as individuals or composites * R. A. Houston, English Historical Review *
As well as students of literary culture, historians will find this book valuable as a guide to epistolary sources. * Northern History *


Awards
Winner of Winner of the Modern Language Association Prize for Independent Scholars.



Book Information
ISBN 9780199602186
Author Susan Whyman
Format Paperback
Page Count 398
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 233mm * 163mm * 18mm