ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 explores the evolution of the letter into life writing through autobiography into biography and auto/biography. At the moment of writing, the personal letter is a vehicle for recollection and for writing events and collating news. When letters become the narrative of an exemplar life, however, this original life-writing moment will be re-inscribed by future editors and biographers to produce a hybrid text. This chapter introduces the factual and fictional letter in life-writing theory, using critical responses within social science and literary studies. Letters have been preserved through the agency of third parties who choose or collate from within their collections. The chapter discusses the collaborative and communal nature of life writing in letters arising from correspondence, collection and editing. The chapter explores the corresponding self, life-writing contingency and the role of family and institutional preservation, and then considers the role of collective biography for exemplar women before introducing the concept of women’s letters as life writing in the nineteenth century.
