Letters From the Past: Epistolary Historical Fiction

While discussing books with some ladies I met at an art workshop recently, one mentioned that The Correspondent by Virginia Evans was her first introduction to the concept of epistolary novels. As a former English Lit major and forever book nerd, I was absolutely delighted and proceeded to recommend every novel-in-letters that I could think of off the top of my mind. The list wasn’t very long, I’m afraid. Aside from Lady Susan and the first book mentioned on this list, I couldn’t think of much. Later on, I remembered Dracula and Frankenstein, though the latter doesn’t feel so much epistolary since the entire novel takes place between the pages of a single letter. My inability to come up with many epistolary novels inspired me to dig deeper, though. I love an epistolary novel, especially a historical one, so I immediately started looking for more, both to satiate my own desire and to recommend next time the topic comes up. These five epistolary historical fiction novels represent different takes on the genre, from a series of back-and-forth letters between correspondents to diary entries that reveal the life of a person the reader might never have known. They all have one thing in c...