The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Letter Book, by George Saintsbury

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Title: A Letter Book
Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing

Author: George Saintsbury

Release Date: January 25, 2010 [EBook #31072]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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| Transcriber's Note |
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| Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in |
| this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of |
| this document. |
| |
| Text printed using the Greek alphabet in the original book |
| is shown as follows: [Greek: logos]. |
| |
| Superscript text in the original book is shown as follows: |
| w^ch |
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A LETTER BOOK

A LETTER BOOK

SELECTED WITH AN INTRODUCTION
ON THE HISTORY AND ART OF
LETTER-WRITING

BY

GEORGE SAINTSBURY

LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE AND CO.
1922

PREFACE

When my publishers were good enough to propose that I should undertake
this book, they were also good enough to suggest that the Introduction
should be of a character somewhat different from that of a
school-anthology, and should attempt to deal with the Art of
Letter-writing, and the nature of the Letter, as such. I formed a plan
accordingly, by which the letters, and their separate Prefatory Notes,
might be as it were illustrations to the Introduction, which was
intended in turn to be a guide to them. Having done this with a proper
_Pourvu que Dieu lui prete vie_ referring to both book and author, I
thought it well to look up next what h