letter writing in renaissance england
Those of you in the D.C. area might want to stop by this exhibit at the Folger:
This exhibition devotes itself to the myriad processes of letterwriting: the penning, sending, receiving, reading, circulating, copying, and saving of letters. The text of a letter provides one part of the story, while its very tangibility --the ancient folds, the grime and fingerprints deposited by the writer, deliverer, and readers, the broken seals, the ink blots, the idiosyncratic spelling, the location of a signature--tells another. An understanding of a letter's written and unwritten social signals brings into focus a fuller, grittier, and ultimately more convincing picture of everyday life in early modern England.
(Via WaPo.)