How did letters become published?

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Accepted answer

Your guess is right. Some people recognized the value of their correspondence and published it themselves. Probably this tradition begins from Ancient Rome, and we still have collections of letters of Cicero, Pliny the Younger, and few others of the same epoch (late republic and early empire). It is evident that other people also recognized the value of this correspondence, since they copied and republished these letters for centuries. And they were right: according to Wikipedia:

Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism

In other cases, the letters are published by heirs, or by the editors of works of a person. For many famous authors, collected works are published that frequently contain their private correspondence.

Upvote:0

Since asking the question and seeing the great answers above, I've also run into some accounts of how difficult it sometimes was to collect peoples writings after they died.

This is from a short biography of William Cowper:

"In those very interesting conferences with which I was honored by Lady Austen, I was irresistibly led to express an anxious desire for the sight of a letter written by Cowper in a situation that must have called forth all the finest powers of his eloquence as a monitor and a friend. The lady confirmed me in my opinion, that a more admirable letter could not be written; and had it existed at that time, I am persuaded, from her noble frankness and zeal for the honor of the departed poet she would have given me a copy; but she ingenuously confessed that in a moment of natural mortification, she burnt this very tender, yet resolute letter. I mention the circumstance, because a literary correspondent, whom I have great reason to esteem, has recently expressed to me a wish (which may perhaps be general) that I could introduce into this compilation the letter in question. Had it been confided to my care, I am persuaded I should have thought it very proper for publication, as it displayed both the tenderness and the magnanimity of Cowper; nor could I have deemed it a want of delicacy towards the memory of Lady Austen to exhibit a proof that, animated by the warmest admiration of the great poet, whose fancy she could so successfully call forth, she was willing to devote her life and fortune to his service and protection. ..." - Quoting Hayley this is from "A Prefatory Memoir of William Cowper" in "The Poetical Works of William Cowper Complete Edition"

There is also a series of interviews on Socrates in the Cities website of Walter Hooper who was responsible for collecting and helping to publish many of C.S. Lewis' works after his death. In these interview's Hooper talks, among other things, about his work to search out and collect all of C.S. Lewis' writings, even saving some of them from destruction shortly after Lewis' death:

socratesinthecity.com (part 1, part 2, and part 3)

Upvote:2

Not all letters are really just personal, private, intimate correspondence.

In some even very early cases we might see that the authors themselves might have intended for their writings to be eventually published for a wider audience.

Even in cases if the authors did not originally planned it in this way, some of the readers obviously came to see it otherwise, as your collections prove.

Early and well known examples for such collections seem to be the letters of Cicero, collected and preserved by his freedman Tiro, and arguably even more famous: the letters of Paul the apostle, making up a a bulk of the New Testament, who most probably wanted the letters published in a collection (— David Trobisch: "Paul's Letter Collection", 1994. archive.org). The named addressees in each προοίμιον, which are usually entire communities also indicate in that direction. In any case, circulation of copies soon led to some of his followers to collect those.

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