So, as you are probably a fellow book nerd comme moi, I bet you enjoy lists as much as I do. So, in an idle moment one day, I was thinking how I love epistolary* novels and thought I would compile a list to see how many epistolary novels (and similar non-fiction) I had either read or had on the TBR pile right now.
This is what I have come up with so far (in no particular order):
- Letters of a Woman Homesteader – Eleanor Pruitt Stewart
- Letters from Father Christmas – Tolkein
- The Country Diaries: A Year in the British Countryside – Alan Taylor (ed.)
- The Diary of Ann Frank – Ann Frank
- The Diaries of Adrian Mole – Sue Townsend
- The Assassin’s Cloak – Alan and Irene Taylor (ed.)
- Gone with the Windsors – Laurie Graham
- The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt – Caroline Preston
- Diary without Dates – Edith Bagnold
- Diary of a Good Neighbor – Doris Lessing
- If the Old Could Talk – Doris Lessing
- Clarissa (or The History of a Young Lady) – Samuel Richardson
- Dracula – Bram Stoker
- Narrative of Frederick Douglass – Frederick Douglass
- The Worst Journey in the World (Antarctic) – Apsley Cherry-Garrard
- Radioactive (Marie Curie) – Laurie Redniss
- The Provincial Lady diaries – E. M. Delafield
- Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – Paul Torday
- Woman’s World – Graham Rawle
- Harriet the Spy – Louise Fitzhugh
- Alan Bennett has lots of epistolary stuff
- Book of One’s Own: People and their Diaries – Thomas Mallon
- The Hidden Writer – Alexandra Johnson
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hill – Anne Bronte
- The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
- Daddy Long-Legs – Jean Webster
- Griffin and Sabine trilogy – Nick Bantock
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society – Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
- We Need to Talk about Kevin – Lionel Shriver
- Sherlock Holmes has some epistolary stuff in
- As We Are Now – May Sarton
- Something Happened Yesterday – Beryl Bainbridge
- The Diary of a Nobody – Weedon and George Grossmith
- The Color Purple – Alice Walker
- So Long a Letter – Mariama Bâ
- Love, Nina – Nina Stibbes (NF)
- Like One of the Family – Alice Childress (F)
- Letters from New York – Helen Hanff (NF)
- The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins (F)
- Fraulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther – Elizabeth van Arnim (F)
- A Celibate Season – Carol Shields (F) – let me save you some time. Don’t.
- The Ginger Tree – Oswald Wynd (F)
- As for Me and My House – Sinclair Ross (F)
- The Diaries of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing (F)
- As for Me and My House – Sinclair Ross (F)
- The Diary of Hendrick Groen Aged 83 3/4 – anon. (No blog post but trust me – it was good.)
- Kindred – Octavia E. Butler (1976)
- The Lizard Cage – Karen Connelly (2005)
- Mrs. Miniver – Jan Struther (1939)
Others that you think of from your reading experience? Just try to remember without googling. More fun that way!
*Epistolary (defined according to Miriam-Webster): of, relating to, suitable to a letter; contained or carried on by letters. Other acceptable formats: diary entries, newspaper clippings, emails etc.
Updated: 10/01/2019.
And there’s always “The Iris Letters,” of course! 🙂
Bien sur, ma amie… bien sur…. 🙂
There was a wonderful radio series, Ladies of Letters which eventually Evoled into emails. However i dont know if this ever made it into novel form.
Alex – was it fiction or non-fiction? Sounds interesting…! Thanks.
Fiction, I’m not certain if it is available, but it was BBC Radio 4 if you want to try and source it. It was very funny.
I looove a great epistolary novel. One of my recent favorites was The Monsters of Templeton, which I adored!
Have not heard of “Monsters…” so will dig that out. Thanks!