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Write a note on Epistolary novel.

Who introduced epistolary form by writing in fiction?

An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, news paper clippings, and other documents are sometimes used. An epistolary novel is also called a novel oif letters, because the narration talkes place in the form of letters, possibly journal enteries and occasionally newspaper reports. The World Epistolary’ is derived through Latin from the Greek word ‘Epistole’ which means a letter. An epistoe is an archaic term which is used for a letter. The expistolary novel is an interesting literary technique, because it allows a writer to include multiple narrators in his or her story. This means the story can be told and interpreted from numerous view points.

The first true epistolary novel was the 17th century work, Love Letters between a Noble man and his sister written by Aphra Behn. Unlike many novels to follw, several volumes of the work also include the voice of a narrator who ties together letters and comments on all of the characters. This aspect would disappear in later works when the epistolary novel became popular in the eighteenth century.

On these eighteenth century works, the most famous epistolary novels were those of Samuel Richardson. Both of his novels Pamela and Clarissa were novels of letters. The French novelist Pierre Ambrosise Francois Choderlos de Laclos wrote one of today’s most recognizable epistolary novels Les Liaison Dangereous (Dangerous Liasons), which has been the inspiration for modern plays and two popular films, Dangerous liaisons and Lol mont. As with any novel from, the epistolary novel fell out of favour and began to be copies and mocked by writers, though serious writers like Jane Austen did try to write a successful epistolary novel in the short work ‘Lady Susan’,.. Even in the mid eighteenth century Parodies of the epistolary novel like Henry Fieldings ‘Shamela’ began to emerge.

Thouse this form of novel became less popular, efforts to revive the epistolary novel continued in the nineteenth century and several extremely well known writers showed great skill in this form. Among those, the mystery works of Wilkie Collins, especially in “The Woman in white” and “The Moonstone” use letters, reports, transcriptions and diary entries to convey multiple view points and advance the plot. Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ is also considered an epistolary novel that is very effective and continues to capture the imagination of modern audiences.

Alice Walker also did great credit to the from in her novel, “The Color Purple representing a modern take on the epistolary novel. Spephen king’s first well known novel “Carrie” also combines epistolary elements. Like Aphra Behn’s work, it does include an omniscient narrator.

Perhaps, the most fascinating modern takes on the epistolary novel are the current “novels of emails” that have been written in the last few years. As formal leller writings has become less and less common, using email has become relatively standard form many people of these ecent examples, perhaps the most fascinating in Matt Bequmont’s novel “Using Multiple Person,”. The novel is entirely composed of emails written by people working in an advertising agency. The book is a darkly comil look at the advertising world, in which, Beaumont once worked and does great justice to the modernized epistolary novel form.