Editing Letter (message) (section)

==History of letter writing==
[[File:Letter Darius Gadatas Louvre Ma2934.jpg|thumb|Letter of [[Darius the Great]] to Gadatas, circa 500 BC.]]
[[Image:Einstein Szilard p1.jpg|thumb|The famous [[Einstein letter]] from [[Edward Teller]] and [[Leó Szilárd]] to US President [[Franklin Roosevelt]] suggesting an [[atomic bomb]] project. [[:Image:Einstein Szilard p2.jpg|Click here for page 2.]]]]
[[Image:Kate Hepburn Letter.jpg|thumb|A thank-you letter from [[Katharine Hepburn]] to [[Alan Light]] thanking him for his condolences in regards of [[Cary Grant]]'s death]]
Historically, letters have existed from [[History of India|ancient India]], [[ancient Egypt]] and [[Sumer]], through [[ancient Rome|Rome]], [[ancient Greece|Greece]] and [[History of China#Ancient China|China]], up to the present day. During the 17th and 18th centuries, letters were used to self-educate.{{clarify|date=September 2020}} The main purposes of letters were to send information, news and greetings. For some, letters were a way to practice critical reading, self-expressive writing, polemical writing and also exchange ideas with like-minded others. For some people, letters were seen as a written performance.{{clarify|date=September 2020}} Letters make up several of the books of the Bible. Archives of correspondence, whether for personal, diplomatic, or business reasons, serve as [[primary source]]s for historians. At certain times, the writing of letters was thought to be an art form and a genre of literature, for instance in Byzantine [[epistolography]].<ref name=Oxf>"Epistolography" in ''[[Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium|The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium]]'', [[Oxford University Press]], New York & Oxford, 1991, p. 718. {{ISBN|0195046528}}</ref>

In the ancient world letters might be written on various different materials, including metal, lead, wax-coated wooden tablets, pottery fragments, animal skin, and papyrus. From [[Ovid]], we learn that [[Acontius]] used an apple for his letter to [[Cydippe]].<ref>Ovid, ''Her''. 20</ref> More recently, letters have mainly been written on paper: handwritten and more recently typed. 

There is a wealth of letters and instructional materials (for example, [[Style guide|manuals]], as in the medieval [[ars dictaminis]]) on letter writing throughout history. The study of letter writing usually involves both the study of [[rhetoric]] and [[grammar]].<ref>Carol Poster and Linda C. Mitchell, eds., ''Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present'' (Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina Press, 2007).</ref>

Historians of the medieval period often study family letter collections, which gather the personal and business correspondence of a group of related people and shed light on their daily life. The [[Paston Letters]] (1425 – 1520 CE) are widely studied for insight into life in Britain during the [[Wars of the Roses]].<ref name="ELW-medievalBritain">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Britain: Medieval Letters|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms|publisher=Routledge|location=London|date=2001|editor-last=Jolly|editor-first=Margaretta|pages=131–132|isbn=9781579582326}}</ref> Other major medieval family letter collections include the [[Stonor Letters]] (1420 – 1483 CE), [[Plumpton letters]] (1416 – 1552 CE), and [[Cely Letters]] (1472-1488 CE).<ref name="ELW-medievalBritain" />

In the United States, letters experienced a boost in popularity after the Postal Act of 1845 decreased the price of sending letters and when paper started being made with wood pulp.<ref>Henkin, David M.. ''The Postal Age : The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America'', University of Chicago Press, 2006. ''ProQuest Ebook Central'', <nowiki>https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rit/detail.action?docID=408572</nowiki>.</ref>

Letters were a chief form of communication, in both personal and business communications, for many centuries before [[telegraphy]], [[telephony]], and Internet communications reduced their primacy. Even in times and places where literacy was lower, illiterate people could pay literate ones to write letters to, and to read letters from, distant correspondents. Even in the era of telegrams and telephones, letters remained quite important until [[fax]] and [[email]] further eroded their primacy, especially since the turn of the 21st century. As [[communication technology]] has developed in recent history, posted letters on paper have become less important as a routine form of communication. For example, the development of the [[telegraph]] drastically shortened the time taken to send a communication, by sending it between distant points as an electrical signal. At the telegraph office closest to the destination, the signal was converted back into writing on paper and delivered to the recipient. The next step was the [[telex]] which avoided the need for local delivery. Then followed the fax (facsimile) machine: a letter could be transferred from the sender to the receiver through the telephone network as an image. These technologies did not displace physical letters as the primary route for communication; however today, the Internet, by means of email, plays the main role in written communications, together with text messages; however, these email communications are not generally referred to as letters but rather as e-mail (or email) messages, messages or simply emails or e-mails, with the term "letter" generally being reserved for communications on paper.

On March 6, 2025, [[PostNord]] announced that all letter mail deliveries will cease in [[Denmark]] by the end of 2025, citing a 90% decline in letter mail since 2000.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Denmark postal service to stop delivering letters|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg8jllq283o|access-date=2025-03-06|website=CVC|language=en}}</ref>