ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to uncover how, in the process of commodification, anxieties over the text's authenticity become compounded as manuscript letters move from one global network – that of the international postage system and kinship ties – into another – the print market. It is easy to see where the appeal of printed emigrants' letters lies: their personal tone offered a fresh change from the dry statistics or lengthy expositions on climate or soil that were a standard feature of most government publications or emigrant guidebooks. Mary Holden's initial belief that emigrants' letters were tampered with before leaving the country is a common misconception amongst people in England. In choosing to buy a collection of printed emigrants' letters, readers were also choosing to believe a version of authenticity. The stress on family and continuity in printed emigrants' letters exists side by side with the fear of an altered transmission from sender to recipient and from manuscript to print.
