The Bishop of Exeter Versus Benjamin Hoadly: Pamphlets, Controversy, and the Uses of Epistolarity in Restoration England

Abstract

This essay discusses the use of epistolarity in a pamphlet controversy that played out over a published sermon by the Bishop of Exeter and a critical response by Benjamin Hoadly. While the political, religious, and social aspects of the resulting pamphlet war are substantial, the present article discusses how the form of the letter was employed by the various authors who contributed to this controversy. It argues that the writers drew on readerly expectations about letters that reveal much about the role played by epistolarity within literary culture in Restoration England, in particular, how letters negotiated a contested space between factuality and fictionality that was shaped also by contemporary notions of novelistic writing.