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Epistolary Fiction: Novels in which letters are used to tell the story

Ahern, Cecelia. P.S., I Love You. 2004.
After the death of her young husband from a brain tumor, Holly discovers 10 letters that he sent to her to help her get through the coming year and move on.

Ahern, Ceclia. Rosie Dunne. 2005.
Best friends since childhood, Rosie and Alex, while meant for each other, spend their lives apart. 

Alumit, Noel. Letters to Montgomery Clift : A Novel 2002.
In the 1970s, an 8-year-old Filipino is smuggled to Los Angeles to stay with his alcoholic aunt; he writes letters to the dead actor Montgomery Clift, which helps him come to terms with his abandonment and his blossoming homosexuality. 

Austen-Leigh, Joan. A Visit to Highbury: Another View of Emma. 1995.
Austen-Leigh, Joan. Later Days At Highbury. 1996.
These two books, by Jane Austen's great-great grandniece continue the story of Emma, using a minor character from that book, a Mrs. Goddard, as the focus of the new stories. Through her letters to her sister we observe the romantic goings-on at Highbury.

Ba, Mariama. So Long A Letter. 1989.
In a book that exposes the double standard for women and men in Senegal, Ramatoulaye writes a letter to her good friend during the mandatory 40-day mourning period she must observe after the death of her husband. 

Bantock, Nick. Griffin & Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence. 1991.
Bantock, Nick. Sabine's Notebook: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Continues. 1992.
Bantock, Nick. The Golden Mean: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Concludes. 1993
In this trilogy, the reader eavesdrops on a London card designer and a South Pacific Islander as they exchange letters and establish a psychic and intimate connection. 

Bantock, Nick. The Gryphon : In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine is Rediscovered. 2001.
Bantock, Nick. Alexandria : In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine Unfolds. 2002.
Bantock, Nick. The Morning Star : In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine is Illuminated. 2003.
A second trilogy follows the further adventures of Matthew and Isabella as the author concludes the cosmic romance. 

Bantock, Nick. The Venetian's Wife: A Strangely Sensual Tale of a Renaissance Explorer, a Computer and a Transformation. 1996.
This is a quasi-mystical story in which e-mail messages are exchanged between a San Francisco art conservator and the ghost of a Renaissance merchant/traveler.

Barth, John. Letters: A Novel. 1979.
Using characters drawn from previous novels, Barth writes a comic send-up of academic politics and rivalries at a provincial Maryland college. 

Beard, Philip. Dear Zoe. 2005.
When her little sister, Zoe, dies after being struck by a car on September 11, 2001, 15-year-old Tess DeNunzio works through her grief by writing letters to Zoe. 

Becker, Laney Katz. Dear Stranger, Dearest Friend. 2000.
Logging on to a breast cancer bulletin board after she learns she has cancer, Lara from New York begins a correspondence, with Susan, a survivor from Ohio, that supports and sustains the two women as they struggle with their diagnoses. 

Berg, Elizabeth. Pull of the Moon. 1996.
Impulsively leaving her husband and daughter as she turns 50, Nan hits the road to decide how to change her life.

Bowen, Elizabeth. A World of Love. 1954.
Long-lost love letters change the lives of the Irish Danby family. 

Brust, Steven. Freedom and Necessity. 1997.
This spirited romantic-mystery-fantasy adventure, set in the 19th century, begins as a man receives a letter from his supposedly dead cousin. 

Buckhanon, Kalisha. Upstate. 2005.
Over the course of a decade, 17- year-old Antonio, in jail for murder, writes to his 16-year-old girlfriend, as they both struggle to survive the fate life hands them. 

Burney, Fanny. Evelina. 1909.
These letters describe the pursuit of upper-class social life in London in the late 18th century.

Byatt, A.S. Possession: A Romance. 1990.
Two contemporary literature scholars uncover a hidden cache of letters which leads to a previously undiscovered illicit relationship between two Victorian poets.

Cabot, Meg. Boy Meets Girl. 2004.
Kate is forced by her evil boss to fire the dessert-cart lady, Ida. When Ida sues for wrongful termination, Mitch, the evil boss's boyfriend's brother, represents Ida, and Kate falls for him.

Cabot, Meg. The Boy Next Door. 2002.
When Melissa offers to pet sit for her neighbor who is comatose as the result of a murder attempt, she meets and falls for her neighbor's charming nephew, Max, until a mysterious e-mail reveals a secret about him. 

Caldwell, Taylor. Dialogues with the Devil. 1967.
A witty contest between Lucifer and the Archangel Michael illuminates some central truths of human existence as each attempts to proclaim his own superior power.

Campbell, Ramsey. The Count of Eleven. 1992.
A broken chain letter brings an Englishman bad luck and leads to a string of gruesome murders.

Caudwell, Sarah. Thus Was Adonis Murdered. 1981.
Soon after English lawyer Julia Larwood goes to Venice to seduce a young man, he is found murdered, and Julia must prove her innocence.

Charriere, Isabelle de. Letters of Mistress Henley Published by her Friend. 1993.
Originally published in 1784. Mistress Henley, in six letters, questions the possibility of happiness in marriage and the worth of the Enlightenment's "man of reason."

Chernaik, Judith. Love's Children. 1992.
Journal entries and letters chronicle the lives of four women caught under the spell of Victorian poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Conlon, Evelyn. A Glassful of Letters. 1998.
As Connie struggles to find happiness with the demands of motherhood and a loveless marriage, she takes up writing to an imprisoned Irish political prisoner, with whom she falls in love. 

Cooperstein, Claire. Johanna: A Novel of the van Gogh Family. 1995.
Based on Johanna Bonger-van Gogh's diary, this novel tells how Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law rescues his works from destruction after Vincent's suicide and her husband's death.

Coote, Cathy. Innocents. 2002.
A sexually precocious sixteen-year-old girl seduces her shy thirty-four-year-old teacher. 

Dessaix, Robert. Night Letters: A Journey Through Switzerland and Italy. 1997.
An Australian man, diagnosed with a terminal illness, travels to Europe in his own Dante-esque search for paradise.

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. 1948.
Originally published in 1837. Dicken's insight into human warmth and generosity is evident in the adventures and foibles of the Pickwick Club as they travel the highways of old England.

Doherty, P.C. Death of a King. 1985.
In this medieval mystery, a royal clerk conducts a secret investigation into the murder of King Edward II.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Poor Folk. 1915.
Originally published in 1846. In St. Petersburg, Makar, a public servant, exchanges love letters with a seamstress yet seems more concerned with his writing style and that of his rival than with his romance.

Dundon, Susan. To My Ex-Husband. 1994.
Emily Moore writes letters, that she never sends, to her ex-husband exploring what went wrong with their marriage.

Dunn, Mark. Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable. 2001
Set on the fictional island of Nollop, this humorous tale reveals what happens to a group of people who worship the alphabet when letter tiles in their pangram shrine (the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog) come loose and disappear. 

Dyer, Chris. Wanderlust. 2003.
Travel writer Kate meets and falls in love with British photojournalist Miles at the same time that her ex-husband Jack decides he wants to try their relationship again. 

Farr, Judith. I Never Came to You in White. 1996.
An Emily Dickinson scholar, Farr provides a fictional portrait of Dickinson's life, focusing on a year the poet spent at a seminary until after her death.

Frayn, Michael. The Trick of It. 1989.
In this comic farce, a literary critic and professor courts and marries the novelist who is his professional specialty.

Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy. 1994.
In this internationally successful novel, the history of philosophy is embedded in a fantasy-mystery intended for young adults.

Gannett, Lewis. The Living One. 1993.
A gay teenager, moved from Southern California to Massachusetts, becomes a virtual prisoner of his rich and strange father who is revealed to be a centuries-old psychic.

Gardam, Jane. The Queen of the Tambourine. 1991.
After a neighbor leaves her family to travel the world, Eliza Peabody begins a letter-writing campaign to bring her back, and in doing so, reveals the details of her own listless life.

Ginzburg, Natalia. The City and the House. 1986.
Lucrezia and Piero break up over her many infidelities, leaving their friends, a collection of characters, to brood over the loss of the country house, Le Margherite, where they all once gathered.

Glover, Daniel. Down from the Dog Star: A Novel. 1999.
Aging gay man Jackie Luden from Ludens Bend, Alabama, writes about the unusual and quirky characters in his ancestral town. 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. The Sorrows of Young Werther. 1971.
Set in mid-eighteenth century Germany, this is the story of a young man who loses himself in fantastic dreams and passionate love.

Grass, Gunter. Dog Years. 1965.
A satire set in Germany in the 1920s to the 1950s, this novel is a parable of modern man, materialism and transcendence.

Greenberg, Joanne. Where the Road Goes. 1998.
Antigone (Tig), an activist grandmother, takes a year-long cross-country environmental walk, becoming a confidante and counselor for her family.

Griffin, William. The Fleetwood Correspondence: A Devilish Tale of Temptation. 1989.
In this comic satire, an older demon challenges his nephew to tempt and win the soul of a beautiful woman.

Gulland, Sandra. The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. 1999.
Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe. 1999.

Gulland, Sandra. The Last Great Dance on Earth. 2000.
These three novels tell Josephine Bonaparte's life from her girlhood in Martinique to her marriage with Napoleon, to her death. 

Hailey, Elizabeth. A Woman of Independent Means. 1978.
Beginning in Honey Grove, Texas, this novel of a 20th century woman covers several decades of Bess Alcott's life, through the dramas of her marriage, children, loves and travels. 

Halpin, Brendan. Donorboy: A Novel. 2004.
Fourteen-year-old Rosalind is placed in the custody of her sperm-donor father, a single public-service lawyer, after losing both of her lesbian parents in a bizarre accident. 

Hansen, Brooks. The Chess Garden; or the Twilight Letters of Gustav Uyterhoeven. 1995.
At the turn of the century, Dr. Uyterhoeven leaves Ohio to care for victims of the Boer War. His letters home describe an imagined parallel universe where chess pieces come to life and guide the reader through a fantastic adventure.

Harris, Mark. Lying in Bed: A Novel. 1984.
This funny novel concerns a professor of writing who is trying to cope with writer's block, impotence and his fascination with his 22-year-old student.

Heckler, Jonellen. White Lies. 1989.
Three sisters, maturing in the 1960s and 70s, epitomize the changing status of women and their shifting values during those turbulent decades.

Heller, Keith. The Woman Who Knew Gandhi. 2003
An Englishwoman's long secret correspondence with Gandhi is discovered, after his death, by his son. Dying of tuberculosis and determined to meet her, the son threatens Martha with exposure unless she goes to India to meet him, unleashing unexpected reactions from her family. 

Hitt, Jack, ed. The Perfect Murder: Five Great Mystery Writers Create the Perfect Crime. 1991.
Tim wants to commit the perfect murder of his wife so he seeks the counsel of experts -- mystery writers, including Lawrence Block and Tony Hillerman.

Jaffe, John. Thief of Words. 2003.
A middle-aged literary agent with a somewhat scandalous past begins an e-mail correspondence with a journalist. 

Kafka, Paul. Love Enter. 1993.
Obstetrical intern Dan Schoenfeld composes ardent letters to three once-close friends, reminiscing about their past love and friendship in Paris.

Laclos, Choderlos de. Les Liaisons Dangereuses. 1961.
The battle of the sexes is waged in eighteenth century France between a rich scheming widow, a predatory rake and a beautiful and virtuous woman.

Lardner, Ring. You Know Me Al: A Busher's Letters. 1960.
Jack Kufe, a professional baseball player, writes humorously illiterate letters to a pal.

Lee, Robert. Guiding Elliot. 1997.
As a Montana fly-fishing guide attempts to impart his wisdom to a New York City fishing club, he also relates hilarious anecdotes of small-town life and its characters. 

L'Engel, Madeleine. Love Letters. 1996.
To recover from the death of her son and the hurt of a failing marriage, Charlotte escapes to Portugal where she finds 17th century love letters written by a nun; each woman is struggling to understand how love has influenced her life.

Leroy, Benjamin. Scratch the S. 2001.
The correspondence and evolving relationship between a death-row inmate and a single mother is interwoven with the story of the man's horrible crime. 

Levi, Jonathan. Guide for the Perplexed. 1992.
Two very different women travel to Spain -- one to produce a documentary film; the other to search for a historical family artifact -- and slowly uncover common bonds. 

Lodge, David. Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses. 1975.
During an academic exchange between two professors, one British, and one American, their lives begin to intersect in interesting ways.

Logue, Antonia. Shadow-box. 1999.
Logue imagines the 1946 correspondence between the modernist poet Mina Loy and Jack Johnson, a black heavyweight boxing champion, both who had been involved with Dadaist Arthur Craven, nephew of Oscar Wilde and a con man. 

Longenecker, Bruce W. The Lost Letters of Pergamum: A Story from the New Testament World. 2003.
Based on careful scholarship of the New Testament, Luke and a figure from Revelation, Antipas, correspond, as Luke attempts to convert the young Roman, who eventually becomes a martyr. 

Lutz, John. Nightlines. 1984.
| In solving the St. Louis murder of a twin sister, Al Nudger, private investigator, uncovers the illegal use of the telephone company's private lines for erotic encounters.

Macomber, Debbie. Between Friends. 2002.
A friendship between women from different backgrounds in the same town endures for over 50 years. 

McCrumb, Sharyn. Lovely in her Bones. 1985.
Amateur sleuth Elizabeth MacPherson attempts to solve a mystery when the leader of a North Carolina Indian burial-ground archeological dig is found murdered in his tent.

McMurtry, Larry. Buffalo Girls: A Novel. 1990.
In his third historical novel, McMurtry recounts the end of the wild West through Calamity Jane's final years, including her letters to an imaginary daughter to whom she writes her regrets at the lonely end of her life. 

Mathews, Harry. The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium. 1975.A librarian, Zachary McCaltex, and his wife, Twang, who is living apart from him in Italy, are trying to unearth the exact location of a 16th-century treasure somewhere off the Florida coast.

Michael, Judith. Acts of Love. 1997. A theater director discovers letters written to his deceased actress grandmother by her protÈgÈ and is so charmed by the letters he sets out to meet her.

Munro, Alice. Open Secrets: Stories. 1994.
A young woman married to an older man is haunted by the disappearance of a teenage girl from a Canadian hike leading the woman to ponder the complexities of her own life.

Munson, Ronald. Fan Mail. 1993.
In this commentary on the media in the electronic age, a TV-news anchor receives explicit letters from a fan; her producer has her open an explosive package on air and ratings skyrocket. 

Muske-Dukes, Carol. Dear Digby. 1989.
Willis Jane Digby, the letters editor of feminist "Sisterhood" magazine, answers letters, some funny, some disturbing, from her unusual and idiosyncratic public.

Offit, Avodah. Virtual Love. 1994.
In this psychological novel, a young San Francisco psychiatrist begins a professional e-mail correspondence with a New York colleague but his messages soon turn very personal.

Orlock, Carol. The Goddess Letters. 1987.
This retelling of the myth of Demeter, goddess of fertility, and her daughter Persephone combines the Greek myth with an examination of the mother - daughter relationship.

Osborn, Karen. Between Earth and Sky. 1996.
Abigail Conklin heads west with her family from post-Civil War Virginia to the New Mexico gold mines, where she writes to her sister chronicling her growing love of the New Mexico landscape.

Owen, Howard. Harry & Ruth. 2000.
Two star-crossed lovers meet before World War II, but circumstances keep them apart for most of their lives. 

Oz, Amos. Black Box. 1987.
Set in Israel, this domestic tragi-comedy is about four adults - a woman, her devout Orthodox husband, her ex-husband and his lawyer - and their battle over the control of the woman's son.

Parks, Tim. Home Thoughts. 1987.
In this funny study of human relationships, Julia Delaforce, teaching English in Verona, Italy, befriends several endearing characters.

Plimpton, George. Pet Peeves, or, Whatever Happened to Doctor Rawff? 2000.
Readers are invited to solve the mystery of missing pet-problem advice columnist Dr. Rawff through a series of increasingly bizarre letters sent to his office. 

Poniatowska, Elena. Dear Diego. 1986.
In Paris, Mexican painter Diego Rivera and Angelina Beloff, a Russian emigrant, had an affair for ten years. After his return to Mexico, she wrote love letters that he never answered. Poniatowska imagines these letters in this novel.

Pool, Gail, ed. Other People's Mail: An Anthology of Letter Stories. 2000.
An anthology of epistolary fiction from the last 50 years. 

Richardson, Samuel. Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady. 1980.
First published in 1749. To avoid a loveless marriage her parents advise, Clarissa confides in Lovelace, who abuses her confidence. Though he proposes, she refuses and lives in grief and shame.

Richardson, Samuel. Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded. 1933.
First published in 1740 - 1742, this novel tells the story of a maid-servant of good upbringing who is put-upon by her master.

Robinson, Elisabeth. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters. 2004.
In this tragicomic novel, a struggling film producer flies between Hollywood and Ohio as she tries to put together a movie version of Don Quixote and spends time with her younger sister, who is dying of leukemia. 

Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead. 2004.
In a meditation on fathers and sons, a 70-year-old preacher writes a letter to his 7-year-old son, leaving an account of his life to a son who will not know him. 

Sayers, Dorothy. Busman's Honeymoon: A Love Story with Detective Interruptions. 1937.
Aristocratic sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, marries Harriet Vane and discovers, in the basement of their honeymoon cottage, the body of their host.

Sayers, Dorothy. Documents in the Case. 1930.
Clues to the death by mushrooms of an expert on the subject are hidden in a series of letters and documents and lead to the capture of a brilliant, elusive London murderer. 

Shaykh, Hanan al-. Beirut Blues. 1995.
A well-to-do woman in love with her city tries to decide to leave or stay in this intimate meditation on how war has destroyed the beautiful cosmopolitan city of Beirut.

Shepard, Elizabeth. H. 1995.
A mentally-disturbed 12-year-old is sent to summer camp where we follow his condition through letters from parents, counselors and his psychiatrist as well as his own letters to an imaginary friend embodied in the stuffed letter H.

Shields, Carol. The Stone Diaries. 1994.
An aged woman discovers herself as she reflects upon her life, which spans much of the 20th century.

Shields, Carol. Unless. 2002.
When the eldest daughter of Reta Winters inexplicably drops out of college and turns up panhandling on the streets of Toronto, Reta reconsiders her own life and attempts to find happiness despite her grief. 

Sholom Aleichem. Marienbad. 1982.
Letters are exchanged between Warsaw and the resort town of Marienbad as husbands and wives attempt to convince each other of their honorable behavior.

Shriver, Lionel. We Need to Talk about Kevin. 2003.
A woman and her separated husband communicate about their son, who is in prison for the Columbine-style murder of a teacher and seven high school students. 

Smith, Julie. New Orleans Beat. 1994.
Members of the virtual online community, TOWN, suspicious of the accidental death of one of its members, hire Skip Langdon to investigate.

Smith, Lee. Fair and Tender Ladies. 1988.
This is a novel of life in Appalachia as told through letters, written by a Virginia mountain girl, that span 65 years from the beginning of the 20th century.

Smollett, Tobias. Expedition of Humphry Clinker. 1929.
First published in 1771. Humphry, a work-house lad apprenticed as a blacksmith, eventually enters the service of Mr. Brambles and travels with the family through England and Scotland.

Sparks, Nicholas. Message in a Bottle. 1998.
On a Cape Cod vacation, a divorced newspaper columnist finds a bottle containing a love letter from a bereaved husband to his deceased wife. The columnist tracks down the writer and finds love.

Stegner, Wallace. Angle of Repose. 1971.
Beautiful, charming Susan and her engineer husband Oliver Ward struggle for a decent life in the mining and irrigation project camps of the 19th century West.

Stockley, Philippa. A Factory of Cunning. 2005
On the run from a scandalous past in France, Mrs. Fox arrives in London determined to rehabilitate herself and gain entrance into upper-class, 18th century London society. 

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897.
This is the original story of the terrible baron from a Transylvanian castle who leads an army of vampires to prey on humans and the humans' efforts to stop them.

Tamaro, Susanna. Follow Your Heart. 1995.
In this novel, originally written in Italian, a woman confesses her life story to her granddaughter in hopes of mending their broken relationship.

Taylor, Kathrine Kressman. Address Unknown. 1995.
First published in 1938 as a warning of the Nazi menace, this novel includes the letters between two friends, one a San Francisco Jew and the other, from Munich, who is seduced by Hitler's vision.

Teller, Astro. Exegesis. 1997.
The first novel by the grandson of physicist Edward Teller consists of e-mail letters between a Berkeley graduate student and "Edgar," her artificial-intelligence cyber-pen-pal, created for her doctoral research; an academic ownership vs. National Security struggle ensues.

Thomas, Diane Coulter. The Year the Music Changed: The Letters of Ascha McEachern-Isaacs and Elvis Presley. 2005.
This novel features fictional letters between the up-and-coming Elvis Presley and a precocious 14-year-old girl with a cleft palate. 

Trahey, Jane. Thursdays 'Til 9. 1980.
Follow Penny Smith's career in a chic Texas department store through letters and inter-office memos.

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. 1982.
Celie is emotionally numb after the repeated raping by her "father" and a marriage to a cruel and brutal man until she meets Shug, a blues singer, who helps her learn to live and love.

Wilder, Effie Leland. Out to Pasture (But Not Over the Hill). 1997.
Written by an 85-year-old woman, this semi-autobiographical novel takes a look at aging through the stories of the residents of a retirement community.

Wilder, Thornton. The Ides of March. 1950.
This novel offers various views of the last month of Caesar's life as seen through letters and documents.

Winterson, Jeanette. The PowerBook. 2000.
Set in cyberspace and a love story that blurs the concept of time, gender and identity, this novel features a narrator who creates alternate love lives for people on the Internet, lives people can inhabit without knowing how their story will end. The narrator undergoes his/her own transformation. 

Wynd, Oswald. The Ginger Tree. 1977.
Spanning 40 years, this novel follows Mary as she leaves Scotland for China to marry a military attaché, has a scandalous affair with a Japanese nobleman and is rejected by both cultures for her behavior.

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