Many charms of Epistolary novels

These, written comprising only of letters from persons to persons, do offer many attractions compared to normal novels. They offer multiple points of view of events as seen through the eyes of the different writers.

One of the earliest was Samuel Richardson's "Clarissa", which also has the distinction of being one of the longest novels in the English language, running to more than 1500 pages. It is the tragic story of the eponymous heroine's family being her worst persecutors.

One of Jane Austen's earlier works, "Lady Susan", deals with the beautiful, unscrupulous, Ladyship's manipulations to secure a rich, titled son-in-law through her plain daughter. Whatever the critics' carping, it remains a highly entertaining account because it is a reversal of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew". Here, even though forewarned & convinced of her chicanery, a man becomes so enamored of her ladyship that he defends her against all critics! For her, it is just a game to change completely the bad opinion of a man towards herself & she does not enslave him further.

Another very unusual work of this genre is "Daddy Longlegs", which curiously presents a single viewpoint in spite of the epistolary form, because one of the preconditions imposed on the letter-writing girl (to sponsor her college education) by the man nicknamed in the title, is that there will be no replies!