Video killed the radio star, sang the Buggles in 1979 — assuming the synth-pop Buggles actually sang. In the same year, Mark Amory was putting the finishing touches to a collection of Evelyn Waugh’s letters. He noted in his introduction that letters were an antique curiosity; no one writes them anymore, he wrote.
That grave prognosis was a tad premature. Diana Athill’s recent epistlatory memoir, Instead of a Letter, suggests that men of letters still live up to their name. Then again, Athill is 93.
The telephone gave letter-writing a nagging cold, which email has turned into pneumonia. The letter’s admirers have leapt to help. The Guardian reports that Dave Eggers has joined American magazine the Rumpus for an initiative in which a team of well-known writers will pen letters to selected readers, who will be encouraged to reply.
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