Talk:Epistolary novel

message: Does the term 'epistolary' apply only to novels, or can it be applied to works read as factual, e.g., the Bible? 76.180.120.161 06:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Robinson Crusoe is not written as a diary (it contains one), the term is also not applied to works in which letters appear only occasionally (there are thousands of them - most of them written in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the inclusion of letters - telling you how to write such letters - was extremely fashionable). --Olaf Simons 07:50, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Application

message: Does The Screwtape Letters count, even though we only see the letters from ONE of the pair of correspondents? --Ed
Yes.  If it uses any sort of letters, journal entries, or articles to tell the story, it is an epistolary novel.  --Misha-chan
Okay, so why is it important to note that no epistolary novel has been done in the form of taxes? I'm sure there's a whole world of ways to write an epistolary novel that have never been attempted, so why metion this one? To me it seems a bit silly, so I'm taking it out. I'm a bit shy, because I'm new, so that's why I even mention it. Benji 07:19, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: What have the lettres persanes to do with the other novels mentioned in the article? Nothing but the form. Why can't you see this? --13Peewit (talk) 23:27, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Example

message: What set of concepts would "Epistolary novel" and "Omnicient narrator" both be part of? What other types of storytelling might also be part of the set? matturn 12:13, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Literary devices 

message: This page has basically become a list, where anyone who has read such a novel goes, "Oohh!  I know another one!" and enters it in.  It's not very encyclopedic, as it addresses a largely arbitrary scattering of examples needlessly while not even really delving into the subteties of the genre itself.  Amber388 14:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  How about reorganizing/editing the list(s) to limit it to the major works, or representative works, in each language?  There could be a separate article/list of all the examples. Z Wylld 18:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, just cut the bottom off and moved it to a "list" article.  Ortolan88 20:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, done now.  The top books had no more reason to be in this article than the bottom ones, so I moved them all.  Goldfritha 00:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, but the link, and the listing, say "contemporary" only.  I don't know how to change the title of the separate list.  Can someone change the title + the link to say "later" as well as "contemporary"?  After all, some of these are from the 1800s. :) Z Wylld 15:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually, Goldfritha, there is "more reason" to put some of the most famous epistolary novels ever written -- Dracula, The Moonstone in the main article, while relegating Youth in Revolt and The Perks of Being a Wallflower in a list placed elsewhere.  I expect you can figure out what the reason is.  Ortolan88 16:49, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Moved most of the important modern novels and novelists back to the main article, left Nabokov and Stephen King as teasers so the list article wouldn't seem so slim.  Ortolan88 22:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I slimmed down the list some more Jennifu 23:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grrrr. 

message: What is the point about Agatha Christie.  Certainly most of her novels are not epistolary: there may be examples of course but they are not the classics.    I guess Roger Ackroyd has a malevolent narrator, but so what, it's written as a book not a diary or sequence of letters.     Could somebody clarify the point here or just delete the reference.   --138.251.209.181 (talk) 12:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Agatha Christie??

message: Most of the modern examples (except Alice Walker) are NOT in the list of contemporary epistolary novels.   They should be (or they should not be here).  Also the ones selected for this page don't seem special in any particular way.  I suggest that contemporary (maybe post 1970?) novels be mentioned only in the list on the other page. 
--81.178.208.211 (talk) 16:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Consistency with List

message: The founder of the epistolary novel in English is said by many to be James Howell(1594-1666) with "Familiar Letters", who writes of prison, foreign adventure, and the love of women.
Source for this? I don't think "is said by many" cuts it... G. 117.92.147.242 (talk) 15:00, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  James Howell 

message: Maximilianklein (talk) 23:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: WorldCat Genres

message: We've gone back to the problem Amber388 raised in 2006: "This page has basically become a list, where anyone who has read such a novel goes, "Oohh! I know another one!" and enters it in." This is even less justifiable since now we have a separate list article. 128.148.231.34 (talk) 14:49, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah I've culled a bunch, we just needed to add the invisible comments people have been using for plot summaries and such for years, not sure why nobody thought of it before me. Orchastrattor (talk) 16:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grr again 

message: Removed the claim (present since 2005) that any novel composed of documents is an epistolary; it is unsourced and other encyclopedias do not appear to mention it as a caveat, e.g. [Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/art/epistolary-novel). Added some weasel words to nod in that direction, though, because it clearly is a fuzzy boundary and I didn't want to imply sharp lines or high confidence. --2601:643:867F:6EB0:4DE7:5880:9906:71DC (talk) 19:29, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-letter documents