Books as letters

[alias_sqbr]

Now that everyone's enjoying Dracula in real time via Dracula Daily I decided to look up other notable public domain epistolary novels and was reminded of Dangerous Liaisons. I checked and the letters are dated, starting in August. Alas I don't know if there's any public domain translations but it could be fun for French speakers!

Poking the ones in English they don't seem to be in the form of dated letters, which rather undermines the fun of it. But I know people have worked out a timeline for Pride and Prejudice.

I'm not subscribed to Dracula Daily myself, but I'm enjoying the discussion and might pick it up when it gets to the point where I stopped reading, maybe it'll help to have other people to commiserate with about [SPOILER]. I am hoping all this enthusiasm leads to fixit fic! Also poly shipfic and/or femslash!

Comments

[winterbird]

I ended up subscribing to Dracula Daily (and have read Dracula), there's a surprisingly huge backlog of letters to catch up on. From the way folks were going on I thought it was a 'new thing' vs. 'a thing that has been going for a year, so while I'm happy to read new posts I am less psyched about going back through all the letters lol, especially as there is no 'next' button to press once you open one, so I'm having to open them all in new tabs and go through them one by one. x.x

I'm on the fence about whether it's fun yet! But I think it's awesome that people are getting into classical literature this way. Rainbow Rowell posted that she got the original Dracula and found the language so accessible and surprisingly modern that she had to check if it wasn't a modernisation, and it's kind of cool knowing that...people could potentially find out that yes, even old books are usually quite readable and enjoyable.

[eccentric_hat]

I think they did the whole novel last year, and now they're doing it again this year (and for whatever reason got a lot more attention this time). People who are currently following it got their first email this month.

[winterbird]

Ohhhh that makes way more sense. I was wondering why we were still so early into the book and had a moment of 'it's taken a year to get THIS FAR???'

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, it varies (just as modern books do) but some older books are very readable. Stoker started out as a journalist which probably helped encourage him to use simple, clear prose which is more accessible to a modern audience.

[pedanther]

One book I've been thinking about that's in English, in the public domain, and has dated letters (and apparently isn't on that list) is Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs, in which an orphan is sponsored to go to university on the condition that she writes to her sponsor regularly to demonstrate that she's learning things.

It'd be interesting to see what Tumblr makes of some of the things that happen in it, but Judy only writes once a month so it wouldn't have the same momentum that Dracula Daily enjoys.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh I've never read that, but yeah from what I've picked up the reaction might be messy. Could still be an interesting experience for anyone interested, even if only original fans of the book.

[scytale]

I'm technically subscribed to Dracula Daily but so behind! Sorry, Jonathan, I don't have time to read about your terrible day and shaving mishaps.

It's been interesting watching the fandom spring up overnight and all the memes. I also hope there will be more fic! I'm very curious about what the spoiler you want fixed is -- is it related to a character in the f/f ship, by any chance?

I would love Dangerous Liaisons! I found an old translation but it was...not particularly pleasant reading. But I have fond memories of the book; I listened to it as an audiobook while walking a few years back, and I still remember my reactions to it.

[alias_sqbr]

is it related to a character in the f/f ship, by any chance?

[eccentric_hat]

My first thought was I Capture the Castle, but the entries aren't dated and Dodie Smith lived until 1990! So we're farther from public domain than I had realized.

[alias_sqbr]

So few authors date their letters, totally ignoring the needs of substack maintainers a hundred years later.