Epistolary Bodies: Gender and Genre in the Eighteenth-Century Republic of LettersInformed by Jurgen Habermas's public sphere theory, this book studies the popular eighteenth century genre of the epistolary narrative through readings of four works: Montesquieu's Lettres persanes (1721), Richardson's Clarissa (1749 50), Riccoboni's Lettres de Mistriss Fanni Butlerd (1757), and Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer (1782). The author situates epistolary narratives in the contexts of eighteenth century print culture: the rise