Offered As Real Narratives, That Is, They Were Given a Framing Device; Their Authors

The epistolary novel

During the early part of the development of the novel in English, many fictions were offered as ‘real’ narratives, that is, they were given a framing device; their authors offered them as ‘true’ accounts which they had received at first hand, discovered through old journals, or pieced together from diaries and journalism. Since the word ‘novel’ was not then current in our usage of the term, these stories were often given titles that included phrases such as ‘a history’ or ‘a true account of’ or ‘the life of’. The titles and framing devices gave a sense of plausibility and factuality, and the practice did not entirely die out as the novel developed. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, for example, is subtitled ‘A Biography’.

The term ‘epistolary’ is related to ‘epistles’ (letters), so an ‘epistolary novel’ is one whose narrative is conducted in letters, usually from and to the central protagonist or protagonists. Epistolary fictions were popular in the eighteenth century, and Austen would have read a number of novels in that form. In her letters, she acknowledges the influence of Samuel Richardson, whose novel Clarissa is one of the most famous epistolary novels.

Correspondence provided a good frame for a novel. It offered an ostensible reason for the story’s being told, and therefore a sense of plausibility, and gave the narrative a shape. (Correspondent A witnesses this, and tells correspondent B; correspondent B reacts, and tells correspondent B that.) Letters between close friends and family could reveal a great deal about the emotional response of the writer, while more formal letters or letters of business could provide detail and background. Letter-writing was much more common then than now and, though the post was expensive (for the recipient rather than the sender), letters were often sent for free by the hand of anyone travelling to the right destination.

The epistolary novel did have drawbacks. Even in the eighteenth century, few people would write often enough or in enough detail to provide all the information that the reader of a novel might want. The letter writer, of course, could provide only a limited perspective, and might not tell the reader much about his or herself. Multiple perspectives could be produced by including several correspondents, but none of them would be likely to introduce his or herself or to fill in the background details a reader might need if he or she were writing to anyone close enough for the letters to touch on the personal issues and emotions the novel would need to cover.

As narrative fiction in English developed into the high realism we associate with the nineteenth century novel, the epistolary novel went out of fashion. Jane Austen rewrote her early epistolary novel Elinor and Marianne in the form we more readily associate with her work, as Sense and Sensibility. One of her novels not published in her lifetime, however, Lady Susan, remains in epistolary form and can give us an idea of how Elinor and Marianne might have looked.

None of the six major novels of Austen’s maturity is in epistolary form. Letters appear in each of them, however, and always have an important part to play.