Whose letter is it anyway?: an assessment of secretarial involvement in Lady Elizabeth Hatton’s correspondence
Having secretarial help with correspondence was prevalent amongst both the illiterate and the aristocratic, and this practice has been discussed by researchers such as James Daybell. The letters of Lady Elizabeth Hatton are unusual because her secretary is identified as Sir John Holles, which enable...
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| Language: | English |
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Institut du Monde Anglophone
2012-04-01
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| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/398 |
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| author | Emily Ross |
| author_facet | Emily Ross |
| author_sort | Emily Ross |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Having secretarial help with correspondence was prevalent amongst both the illiterate and the aristocratic, and this practice has been discussed by researchers such as James Daybell. The letters of Lady Elizabeth Hatton are unusual because her secretary is identified as Sir John Holles, which enables the impact of his involvement to be analysed rather than just theorised. The first section of the article uses comparative texts by Holles to try and verify whether or not he was involved in writing those of Hatton’s letters for which he is not explicitly acknowledged. The second section attempts to quantify that involvement by determining whether Hatton would have garnered any benefit from Holles’ handwriting, knowledge of conventions, lexicon, or spelling. The final section traces the changing nature of their relationship to investigate what extra-textual benefits employing Holles may have provided for Hatton and, conversely, the effect of Holles’ own agenda on Hatton’s texts. Holles had earlier been prosecuted by Hatton’s husband, Sir Edward Coke, and openly expressed his hate for the man, both to Hatton and to others. Although it is not possible to retrospectively reconstruct the relative proportions of intellectual input of the two parties into any given text, this article takes a multi-faceted approach to try and unpick the complex issues around authorship and textual ownership. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-d0032ea4d3964089a340b875656940b7 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1634-0450 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2012-04-01 |
| publisher | Institut du Monde Anglophone |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Etudes Epistémè |
| spelling | doaj-art-d0032ea4d3964089a340b875656940b72025-08-20T02:32:45ZengInstitut du Monde AnglophoneEtudes Epistémè1634-04502012-04-012110.4000/episteme.398Whose letter is it anyway?: an assessment of secretarial involvement in Lady Elizabeth Hatton’s correspondenceEmily RossHaving secretarial help with correspondence was prevalent amongst both the illiterate and the aristocratic, and this practice has been discussed by researchers such as James Daybell. The letters of Lady Elizabeth Hatton are unusual because her secretary is identified as Sir John Holles, which enables the impact of his involvement to be analysed rather than just theorised. The first section of the article uses comparative texts by Holles to try and verify whether or not he was involved in writing those of Hatton’s letters for which he is not explicitly acknowledged. The second section attempts to quantify that involvement by determining whether Hatton would have garnered any benefit from Holles’ handwriting, knowledge of conventions, lexicon, or spelling. The final section traces the changing nature of their relationship to investigate what extra-textual benefits employing Holles may have provided for Hatton and, conversely, the effect of Holles’ own agenda on Hatton’s texts. Holles had earlier been prosecuted by Hatton’s husband, Sir Edward Coke, and openly expressed his hate for the man, both to Hatton and to others. Although it is not possible to retrospectively reconstruct the relative proportions of intellectual input of the two parties into any given text, this article takes a multi-faceted approach to try and unpick the complex issues around authorship and textual ownership.https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/398 |
| spellingShingle | Emily Ross Whose letter is it anyway?: an assessment of secretarial involvement in Lady Elizabeth Hatton’s correspondence Etudes Epistémè |
| title | Whose letter is it anyway?: an assessment of secretarial involvement in Lady Elizabeth Hatton’s correspondence |
| title_full | Whose letter is it anyway?: an assessment of secretarial involvement in Lady Elizabeth Hatton’s correspondence |
| title_fullStr | Whose letter is it anyway?: an assessment of secretarial involvement in Lady Elizabeth Hatton’s correspondence |
| title_full_unstemmed | Whose letter is it anyway?: an assessment of secretarial involvement in Lady Elizabeth Hatton’s correspondence |
| title_short | Whose letter is it anyway?: an assessment of secretarial involvement in Lady Elizabeth Hatton’s correspondence |
| title_sort | whose letter is it anyway an assessment of secretarial involvement in lady elizabeth hatton s correspondence |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/398 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT emilyross whoseletterisitanywayanassessmentofsecretarialinvolvementinladyelizabethhattonscorrespondence |