Please Continue: Literary Correspondence as Conversation

Navigation Menu+

In Summary

The letters in this exhibit span a century of English literature, from the 1880s to the 1980s, and each one was sent with the hope that it would bring a response in return, continuing the conversation. Because the fiction writers and poets who wrote this correspondence were all devoted to the craft of writing, their missives are works of art in themselves, albeit more personal and playful than their published volumes had the freedom to be. Each author’s epistles express personality not only through the chosen text, but also through paper color, handwriting, choice of writing utensil, and the many other physical details required to complete and mail a letter. The messages also hint at the lives on the receiving end of the correspondence, prompting us to imagine responses to the questions asked, praises doled out, and affections expressed.

[Print of an engraving of Robert Louis Stevenson]

Richard Watson Gilder, editor of Century magazine, commissioned this portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson to accompany an article about the author by Henry James. John White Alexander sketched Stevenson in the fall of 1886, and John Henry Ellsworth Whitney then made an engraving of the image. The engraving first appeared in the April 1888 issue of Century (Vol. 35, No. 6).

Title	[Print of an engraving of Robert Louis Stevenson]
Creator	J. H. E. Whitney
Date	1888
Source	Ralph Morrissey Collection