In this book Roger Chartier and his associates explore the historyof a cultural practice that has become common and widespread: thewriting of letters. They begin by examining the invention of norms for writingletters in the Middle Ages, and the fixing of these norms inpopular manuals of various kinds. They then analyse theletter-writing models developed in the ancien régime, showinghow these models were linked to court literature, on the one hand,and to the popular books distributed by pedlars, on the other.Finally they discuss the models of letter-writing developed duringthe nineteenth century. The nineteenth century, they argue, was adecisive period in the history of letter writing, partly because ofthe rapid rise in rates of literacy and partly due to broadersocial and economic transformations, which increased the need forwriting letters. By exploring the ways in which practices of letter writing havechanged over the centuries, this path-breaking book sheds light onan everyday cultural practice which has created new ways ofthinking, of feeling and of relating to others as well as tooneself.