What are some good Epistolary books?

[genesis_pig]

Any good recommendations for books in this format..

[EmptySeraph]

Letters from a stoic - Seneca
Epistles - Horace

[ennison]

We Need to Talk About Kevin

[DieterM]

"Dangerous Liaisons" by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
"Persan Letters" by Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu
"Dracula" by Bram Stoker
"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
"Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The Color Purple" by Alice Walker

[Jackson Richardson]

The most famous epistolary novel is Samuel Richardson's Clarissa.

I don't think Frankenstein is written in letters.

[DieterM]

@Jackson Richardson - been a long time since I last read it so I had to wikipedia it, and there it says "The novel Frankenstein is written in epistolary form, documenting a fictional correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville." Shows that my memory's not that bad, I guess ;-)

[Danik 2016]

"Pamela"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela;_or,_Virtue_Rewarded

[Red Terror]

I read Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Laclos and it was solidly good; I recommend it.

Jean Jacques Rousseau also wrote one called Julie Ou La Nouvelle Heloise (Julie, the New Heloise)

Historian Robert Darnton has argued that Julie "was perhaps the biggest best-seller of the century". Publishers could not print copies fast enough so they rented the book out by the day and even by the hour. According to Darnton, there were at least 70 editions in print before 1800, "probably more than for any other novel in the previous history of publishing." -------- from wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie,_or_the_New_Heloise

The Moonstone --- a detective novel by Wilkie Collins

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Poor Folk by Dostoevsky

Saul Bellow's Herzog

Pamela or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

The History of Sir Charles Grandison by Samuel Richardson

[kev67]

Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett was epistolary, but I can't say it was brilliant, although the history was interesting. Brick Road was partly epistolary. The main character receives letters from her sister in Bangladesh. Some books are epistolary but not really, because no one writes letters as long as that. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte was like that.

[Jackson Richardson]

I don't think strictly speaking The Woman in White is epistolary, ie written in letters. It is a series of memoirs by different narrators, collected after the events.

Evelina by Fanny Burney is in letters (I haven't read it) as is Jane Austen's early Lady Susan.

I thought Humphrey Clinker was sweet and I'm sorry I'd forgotten it. As I remember, the letters are from a wider range of personalities than in Pamela or Clarissa - for all its length, there are only four significant correspondents in Clarissa - Clarissa, Lovelace and their confidantes.

[genesis_pig]

Nice recommendations.

I am looking for recommendation which uses the medium/device exceptionally well.

Any new modern ones? What about Attachments by Rainbow Rowell, is it any good?

[prendrelemick]

My favourite Bronte novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. (If you'll allow both letters and journals) Much underrated and (some say) repressed by Charlotte Bronte because of its scandalous themes.

[Pompey Bum]

Any new modern ones?

You may want to try John William's Augustus. It won the National Book Award in the 70s so I guess you could say it's new-ish. The author, who also wrote wrote Butcher's Crossing and Stoner (though not much more than that), has gained an excellent post mortem literary reputation. Here's a link:

https://www.amazon.com/Augustus-Novel-John-Williams-ebook/dp/B002361L2A#nav-subnav

And here's a bit of unsolicited advice: some of the folks above are genuinely recommending books they have read and others are merely listing epistolatory novels they have heard of. Nuff said.

[Red Terror]

Here are two lists from wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistolary_novel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_epistolary_novels

[genesis_pig]

Here are two lists from wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistolary_novel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_epistolary_novels

I think I knew the existence of those pages, looking for exceptional recommendations from members here.

[Red Terror]

I don't think strictly speaking The Woman in White is epistolary, ie written in letters. It is a series of memoirs by different narrators, collected after the events.

Evelina by Fanny Burney is in letters (I haven't read it) as is Jane Austen's early Lady Susan.

I thought Humphrey Clinker was sweet and I'm sorry I'd forgotten it. As I remember, the letters are from a wider range of personalities than in Pamela or Clarissa - for all its length, there are only four significant correspondents in Clarissa - Clarissa, Lovelace and their confidantes.

If those memoirs were shipped over the mail then they were in fact, and law, and in theory "epistolary". LOL!!!

[genesis_pig]

how come no one recommended Letters to a young poet