Paston letters
By: selected and edited with an introd., notes and glossary by Norman Davis.  Critical comment by Horace Walpole, Virginia Woolf, and others.
Contributors: Davis, Norman, 1913- ed.
Series: Clarendon medieval and Tudor series
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Published: 1958
Place of publication: Oxford
Language: eng; enm
Number of pages: 165
Subjects: Paston family -- Correspondence.; Letter writing -- History -- To 1500 -- Sources.; English letters.; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 16th century -- Sources.; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 1066-1485 -- Sources.
Genres: Correspondence.; Sources.
Description: "The Pastons of Norfolk left behind them, in the earliest great collection of family letters in English, an incomparable picture of life in fifteenth-century England -- it's private ambitions, anxieties, hopes, and loves in the midst of political turmoil, local anarchy, and war abroad and at home. The letters, with their wealth of competent, practical writing, illustrate as no other documents can the capacity of the English language at a critical period of its history. Though the letters have long been widely known, they have not been newly edited for over fifty years. Professor Davis has chosen 95 of the most interesting letters, by 26 different writers, and has edited them afresh from the manuscripts, with an introduction, selected criticism, explanatory notes, and a glossary"--Dust jacket.