'Overall, the edited collection makes some significant strides in uncovering multiple histories of a given language, which should inspire similar studies based on personal documents like letters and diaries in other languages too. Hence, the collection can be easily used as a textbook in any advanced sociolinguistics class or a graduate level seminar on language change over time, especially for those interested in letter data for historical studies of any language.' Md Mijanur Rahman, LINGUIST List
1. Setting the scene, letters, standards and historical sociolinguistics Richard J. Watts; 2. Assessing variability and change in early English letters Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy and Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre; 3. Private letters as a source for an alternative history of Middle New High German Stephan Elspaß; 4. Language in print and handwriting Tony Fairman; 5. Heterogeneity vs homogeneity Marianne Hundt; 6. Emerging standards in the colonies, variation and the Canadian letter writer Stefan Dollinger; 7. Linguistic fingerprints of authors and scribes Alexander Bergs; 8. Stylistic variation Anita Auer; 9. English aristocratic letters Susan Fitzmaurice; 10. Early nineteenth-century pauper letters Mikko Laitinen; 11. A non-standard standard? Exploring the evidence from nineteenth-century vernacular letters and diaries Barbara Allen; 12. Archaism and dialect in Irish emigrant letters Lukas Pietsch; 13. Assessing heterogeneity Lucia Siebers; 14. Hypercorrection and the persistence of local dialect features in writing Daniel Schreier; 15. Epilogue: where next? Anita Auer, Daniel Schreier and Richard J. Watts; References; Index.