Abstract

abstract:

The archive of Elizabeth Montagu's extant letters is very large, comprising over seven thousand items, of which the great majority are in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. This essay considers the afterlife of letters in that collection, examining internal evidence of how received letters, copies of letters sent, and sent letters returned were organized within Montagu's household and by a series of subsequent editors. The essay assesses contemporary accounts of systems for organizing sent and received letters in merchant's manuals, and in other descriptions of filing practices of the period. Finally, the essay considers the large number of multiples of the same letter in the Montagu Papers, both drafts and copies made by amanuenses and copyists, and the sociable practice of extra-circulation. The essay uses Derrida's essay "Archive Fever" (1995), especially his concepts of consignation and the disintegrative death drive, to examine particular moments when these systems of letter organization reveal themselves and when those systems break down. In "'The Commerce of Life': Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800)," ed. Nicole Pohl, special issue, http://muse.jhu.edu/issue/39838/print

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