An epistolatory novel is one written mainly in the form of letters, often presented by an anonymous editor, a form which flourished in England from the 1740s until the early 19th century.[1] More recent attempts at adopting the form include C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters1942 novel by C. S. Lewis, in the form of a series of letters between a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood, who is tasked with securing the damnation of a British man known only as the patient. (1942) and William Golding’s Rites of Passage (1980), which introduces a variation in the form of an epistolatory journal.[1]
The term is derived from the Latin epistola, meaning letter, or decree.[2]