"With the wealth of detail covered, the volume is not necessarily an easy read. The text is richly illustrated by examples ... . The book can be recommended to anyone who is seriously interested in the study of Early Modern English ... ." (Terttu Nevalainen, Journal of Historical Pragmatics, Vol. 22 (1), 2021)
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Early Modern English manuscript letters as data: distinguishing between holograph and scribal writing.- Chapter 3: Prose structure.- Chapter 4: Prose structure in its social context.- Chapter 5: Lexical bundles.- Chapter 6: Vocatives.- Chapter 7: Conclusion.
Imogen Marcus is Lecturer in English Language at Edge Hill University, UK. She has published on the scribal profiling of early modern English letters, linguistic borrowing from French into English during the Middle English period and the interface between historical semantics and lexicography. She has also participated in the creation of two historical thesauruses.