It is told from the viewpoint of a fictional narrator in correspondence with an English gentleman, and each letter concerns a different aspect of life or location in the British colonies of America.
A fictional set of correspondences centred on two Persians making their first visit to Europe, they depict satirically a Paris in transition between the old dogmatic absolutes of monarchy and religion and the freedoms of a new age.
Was this, as I think it might well have been, a romantic Victorian story got up with faked medieval correspondence and set about with tantalising if fictional clues?
This summer Gauntlet released "Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to 'Fahrenheit 451,' " containing the stories, drafts and correspondence that culminated in what is perhaps Mr. Bradbury's most enduring work.
In his manuscripts, and even in personal correspondence, Pessoa attributed much of his best writing to various fictional alter egos, which he called "heteronyms".
Letter I: "Introduction" — Introduction of the fictional persona of James, an American farmer, and the commencement of his correspondence via letters with 'Mr F. B.', an English gentleman.
These letters differ from the average writer's correspondence in how deeply they are entwined with the author's fictional universe.
There has to be some correspondence between the tenor of 21st century American life and this public fascination with entirely fictional worlds.
That echoes the notion of correspondence that recurs throughout the piece, moments of co-presence between the living and the dead, the fictional and the real, "the author" and the author and the reader.
Keenly aware of its fictional nature, the ideal type never seeks to claim its validity in terms of a reproduction of or a correspondence with reality.
