The Woman of Colour: A Tale

An epistolary novel is a fictional text written as a series of letters by one or more characters. The term “epistolary” is derived from the Latin word epistle, meaning “letter.” While epistolary novels consist chiefly of letters, they also often include other types of documents, such as newspaper clippings, travel logs, or journal entries. Scholars have long debated the origin of epistolary novels, with some arguing that they began as novels with a few letters inserted in them and others maintaining that they arose from miscellanies of letters and poetry (a miscellany being a mixture or assortment of different types of texts). The first truly epistolary novel was written by a Spanish author in the late 15th century, and the genre became more popular throughout Europe over the next 200 years. In English, the most famous epistolary novels were Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1749). Although it gradually became less popular after the 18th century, the epistolary form still provided the framework for a number of well-known texts, including Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897).

Epistolary novels can be divided into three main categories: monophonic (in which only one character’s letters are included), dialogic (in which letters between two characters appear), and polyphonic (in which letters by three or more characters are included).