ABSTRACT

Samuel Richardson's epistolary novel, Pamela, was published to great acclaim and debate in 1740. The story of a servant girl whose resistance of her master's lustful intentions and defense of her chastity were recounted via her letters home; it had gone through six editions by 1742. The Bordeaux–Dublin Letters coincide with the aftermath of Pamela, the peak of the epistolary novel's popularity as a literary genre, and the rise of laboring-class poets such as Mary Leapor and Stephen Duck in England. The Two Sisters carried more than one letter from each of these servants: two from Barry, three from Nulty, and a two-part letter from Flynn. These women were writing letters frequently from Bordeaux. These women were nodes in their respective epistolary networks. They directed the transport of post as well as goods, receiving and forwarding letters amid a routine flow of correspondence. Enclosed with Barry's letter to Kitty Black was another for her sister Peggy in Cork.