Letter Writing For All Occasions
On many occasions, my patrons have come in utterly ignorant of the proper way and occasion which merits the honor of written correspondence, whether it be for a personal or business matter. Here I provide excerpts from the illustrious Samuel Richardson's Familiar Letters for All Occasions (1741), to guide you towards creating the most excellent epistle possible. We have solicited a few examples which cause men and women most concern for correspondence, and address them here.
Now, it is evident men and women each have different occasions upon which to fulfill various epistolary needs. This being Britain's most vast emporium of self-improvement, I have sought the advice of your most humble and expert opinions in all England to provide you with advice on how to achieve epistolary excellence for the widest possible variety of familiar occasions. Men of outstanding epistolary distinction, such as Samuel Richardson, who has written such best-sellingbeloved novels such as Clarissa and Pamela, and most recently his Familiar Letters, which has already become indispensable in the homes of many a Briton, as well as the popular Amorous Gallant's Tongue
I do believe that epistolary guides serve most useful for our “country readers, who were unable to indite for themselves. Will it be any harm, said I, in a piece you want to be written so low, if we should instruct them how they should think on act in common cases, as well as indite?”(1)
Familiar Occasions of:Love-Letters
and Proposals of Marriage... always in particular demand in letter-writers;
“the proportion of untrained amateurs is so uncommonly high.” (2)
•Letters to and from Lovers, and their Go-Betweens
•Chiding Letters, to admonish wayward wives, husbands, sons, daughters,
acquaintances
•Letters calling upon Acquaintances’ Health
•Categories for Fathers, Mothers, Husbands, Wives, Sons, Daughters, Lovers...
•Entertaining your Friends and Loved Ones with Riveting Accounts of the
Places you have Visited!
•Business letters-
Recommendations
Contracts
Bills of Sale