The next meeting of the TORCH Enlightenment Correspondences Network will take place on Tuesday, 25 November 2014, over the usual free lunch from 12.30 to 2, at Ertegun House (37A St. Giles’). We ask all participants to bring their favourite eighteenth-century epistolary openings and closings, as well as one or two representative samples of what they consider to be conventional openings and closings in a particular linguistic tradition. We will also circulate, in advance, Janet Gurkin Altman’s chapter on ‘The Dynamics of Epistolary Closure’ as one example of a theoretical approach to epistolary closings. We hope, with your contributions, to compare and contrast conventions across epistolary cultures and to explore the ways in which eighteenth-century letter-writers created meaning through these codified yet essential elements of the epistolary text.

Please RSVP to [email protected] by this Friday, 21 November, in order to receive the pre-circulated reading and to help us get an accurate count for the lunch. Please also indicate any special dietary requirements. For more information about the Network, please visit our website: http://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/enlightenmentcorr.