Abstract: This chapter delineates the scope of women's letters and letter-writing, and discusses the survival of letters; the social composition of letter-writers; the frequency with which women dispatched letters; and the range of recipients with whom women corresponded. It also considers more fully the nature and contents of letters, posing several important questions: what did women write about? Do women's letters offer a different perspective on social issues from men's letters? Finally, this chapter examines the physical characteristics of letters, and materially reconstructs the letter-writing process. It investigates when, how, and where women wrote their letters as a way of elucidating more fully the nature and experience of early modern women's letter-writing, drawing connections between traditionally defined domestic and household spheres, and political and business worlds. It is argued that letters achieved meaning not merely as documents or texts, but through material forms: use of manuscript space, handwriting, folding, and seals.

Keywords: social composition, survival of letters, recipients of letters, contents of letters, material forms, handwriting, folding, seals,