title: Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Library of Early Christianity)
author: Stanley K. Stowers
description: <b>Stanley E. Stowers</b> is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
zlib_text: LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS
  1
   LETTERS TO DEAD
  AUTHORS
  By Andrew Lang
  
  LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS
  2
  PREFACE
  Sixteen of these Letters, which were written at the suggestion of the
  Editor of the "St. James's Gazette," appeared in that journal, from which
  they are now reprinted, by the Editor's kind permission. They have been
  somewhat emended, and a few additions have been made. The Letters to
  Horace, Byron, Isaak Walton, Chapelain, Ronsard, and Theocritus have
  not been published before.
  The gem on the title-page, now engraved for the first time, is a red
  cornelian in the British Museum, probably Graeco-Roman, and treated in
  an archaistic style.  It represents Hermes Psychagogos, with a Soul, and
  has some likeness to the Baptism of Our Lord, as usually shown in art.
  Perhaps it may be post-Christian.  The gem was selected by Mr. A. S.
  Murray.
  It is, perhaps, superfluous to add that some of the Letters are written
  rather to suit the Correspondent than to express the writer's own taste or
  opinions. 