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Importance of writing in the 18th century
The epistolary novel became a tremendously popular genre during the 18th century, which is known as the "Great Age of Letter Writing." Postal routes rapidly extended, and the epistolary novel became a hugely popular genre. Letter writers of the time used the format to express and explore their own selves and daily lives. Letters offer an enticing glimpse into other people's thoughts, feelings, and lives as a mode of writing that sits ambiguously between public and private worlds. For the first time, so-called "private" letters were published for the purpose of promoting and maintaining literary celebrity during this time period. Early modern and 18th-century figures carefully constructed themselves in their letters for specific audiences eager to read these kinds of works, just as social media streams today allow modern celebrities to present versions of their intimate lives for public consumption, so did early modern and 18th-century figures carefully construct themselves in their letters for specific audiences eager to read these kinds of works. Personal letters were commonly connected in the 18th century with ideas of sincerity and truth. Writing in the eighteenth century was a complicated technical process that necessitated a wide range of materials and techniques, many of which were difficult or expensive to obtain and were riddled with social significance. Of course, letters are the mobility genre par excellence, and scholars interested in the connections and disconnections between Atlantic migrants, settlers, and refugees have increasingly focused on letters and their functions. Curiously, for such a liminal source, scholars only began interrogating letters as Atlantic documents in the late 20th century; most studies continue to focus on national trajectories of epistolarity.

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was the first English writer to publish completely from his own correspondence during his lifetime, and in doing so, he established a new type of precedent for authors and other notable people's epistolary self-fashioning. Pope saw how writings might demonstrate both personal piety and wit. Pope's writings exude a deliberate lack of formality, informality, and spontaneity. Pope stated, "All the pleasure of use of familiar letters is to give us the assurance of a friend's welfare." He called himself "a mortal enemy and despiser of what they call fine letters," on the other hand. Pope was a public satirist, but his more personal letters expose him not just as witty and amusing, but also as a friend, and in particular, chronicle his personal interactions with other famous authors of the day, such as Jonathan Swift. The letters and other literary activities of Pope are vividly reflected in the manuscripts of his translation of The Iliad. Pope utilized the covers and backs of his letters as paper when translating Homer's epic, which took him almost six years to finish. We now know that, like the more apparent literary works of translation, the letters were reviewed and altered before being printed.