Thank you, Katrina. Great piece. Very much a ROTFLMAO moment with that inclusion of the finding-a-better-man chain letter! And unrelated, I enjoyed your review of The Ruin of All Witches. I purchased that book a while ago on recommendation from a young lady assistant at a UK bookseller but could not finish reading it. So dark and disturbing! Especially the domestic violence aspect. They must have been absolutely horrific times to live in or through if you were “lucky” enough to survive through it, that is.
During the Middle Ages, the "true letter" or "holy letter" became popular with the literate classes. These letters all purported to have magical origins wtih circuitous provenances, and they read a bit like chain letters. So the phenomenon might be as old as writing. If Irving Finkel turns up a chain letter across the Oxus, Indus, and Mesopotamian valleys, I won't be surprised.
Thank you, Katrina. Great piece. Very much a ROTFLMAO moment with that inclusion of the finding-a-better-man chain letter! And unrelated, I enjoyed your review of The Ruin of All Witches. I purchased that book a while ago on recommendation from a young lady assistant at a UK bookseller but could not finish reading it. So dark and disturbing! Especially the domestic violence aspect. They must have been absolutely horrific times to live in or through if you were “lucky” enough to survive through it, that is.
This 🖕
During the Middle Ages, the "true letter" or "holy letter" became popular with the literate classes. These letters all purported to have magical origins wtih circuitous provenances, and they read a bit like chain letters. So the phenomenon might be as old as writing. If Irving Finkel turns up a chain letter across the Oxus, Indus, and Mesopotamian valleys, I won't be surprised.
Everything old is new again.