The Epistolary Novel

Definition: an epistolary novel is a novel written in the form of letters. It is a

type of first-person narrative, but has certain special features not found in the more
familiar autobiographical mode. These novels manage to make fiction look like fact.
1st epistolary novel: Prison of Love by Diego de San Pedro.
It is also similar to the books written in form of a journal (las de italiano sabis a
qu me refiero), but the epistolary novel has two advantages the journal-form doesnt
have: the letters can be addressed to more than one correspondent, and thus show the
same event from different points of view (example: Richardsons Clarissa). And even
if the letters are only addressed to one person (Michael Frayns The trick of it), the
recipients anticipated response conditions the contents of the letter and makes them
more complex and revealing.
Jane Austens first draft of Sense and Sensibility was written in letter form but
she changed it, because of the imminent decline of the epistolary novel in the nineteenth
century.
The writer who uses this device nowadays must separate his correspondents by
some considerable distance to make the convention seem plausible.
-Other examples:
Wolfgang von Goethe The Sorrows of Young Werther
Mary Shelley Frankenstein
Alice Walker The Colour Purple
Jane Austens First impressions was written in letter form and redrafted to
become Pride and Prejudice.