VICTORIAN LETTER WRITING ETIQUETTE

"To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart."

                         -Phyllis Theroux

What is letter writing?

Letter writing is a conversation carried out by two individuals through pen and paper as if they were talking in person.

History of letters

                                               

Before the Victorian era, not just posting but receiving letters was equally expensive as prepaying was seen as a sin. That is when Queen Victoria took over. She drastically decreased the postal rates. This is the time of all kinds of literary renaissance which also includes epistolary renaissance to an extant (you will see).

Quality of the letter matters.

"write a good letter, a letter that is at the same time long enough to interest, yet not long enough to tire; sufficiently condensed to keep the attention, and not tedious, and yet detailed enough to afford satisfaction; that is correct in grammatical construction, properly punctuated, written in a clear, legible hand , with the date, address, signature, all in the proper place, no words whose letters stand in utter defiance spelling-book rules; in short, a well-written letter".

            -an extract from The ladies' book of etiquette and manual of politeness

Neatness was considered important in letters. The paper should either be white or cream in colour, thick and smooth and only then is considered elegant. It was discouraged to write in half or torn sheets of paper as it was considered  rude. The cost of paper was cheap and so were asked to write even a single line in an entire paper. Red ink was not used inside the letter.

You were not encouraged to overwrite on top of the mistake, instead advised to strike off the mistake with a single line and write the correct word again.

 

 Women were asked to use their family crust and nothing else while the man of the family could use his initials on the crust of his sealing wax. 

During mourning, people were expected to burn the edges of their letters and use a black sealing wax to seal their stamps. No fancy ornaments or glittery decorations as they were considered vulgar.

Invitations were generally written in the third person.For invitations of house parties or similar, women were the ones to send the letters as they were considered the head of the house and hostess, as they were the ones who took care of house hold duties.

If people had a slightest doubt with a spelling, they were immediately asked to look into the dictionary for the correct spelling of the word as wrong spellings were considered a waste of time for the reader. Hence, people were encouraged to always have a dictionary on hand while writing letters.

Introduction & Signing off

 When conversing with a stranger or an older person, the writing and introduction should be dignified and mannered.

There are quite a lot of acceptable letter sign-offs. Here are some of them.

Your friend, Your sincere friend, Ever your affectionate friend, Yours heartily and affectionately(Dickens), Faithfully yours(Dickens), Your obliged and affectionate friend, Your loving daughter, Your affectionate father, etc.

So with many rules to follow (though I couldn't get all of them here as it would get lengthy), this is how victorians commuted with one another no matter how far they were. Hoping you would get inspired to maybe start writing letters of your own,

Your affectionate friend,

Vaishnavi Nageswaran