It’s no secret that I love a good epistolary novel. I often think that if I ever wrote a book myself, I’d choose to write in the novel-in-letters form. There’s something so cozy about curling up with a volume of letters – fictional or not, really – and so much the better when the letter-writer grabs your heart. In my years of seeking out epistolary novels, I’ve come across a few truly charming correspondents.

There may be no correspondent more charming than Rose-Marie Schmidt of Elizabeth Von Arnim’s classic Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther. When the novel opens, Rose-Marie, the daughter of an impoverished teacher in a German hillside hamlet, is falling in love with one Roger Anstruther, an English student of her father’s. When Roger goes home to England, Rose-Marie writes him long and effusive love-filled letters. Sadly, Roger is by no means worthy of the wonderful Rose-Marie, and the engagement is short-lived. But a few months later, lonely and in need of an outlet, Rose-Marie renews the correspondence – now with her friend “Mr Anstruther” (demoted from Roger). With the love affair over, the good letters begin, and Rose-Marie writes of her love for books – she’s a particular fan of Jane Austen – of the turn of the seasons in her beautiful mountain home, and of the local denizens of the hamlet. We don’t get Mr Anstruther’s side of the correspondence, which is just fine – Rose-Marie is the star, and rightfully so.

If there’s anyone who can rival Rose-Marie Schmidt as a correspondent, it’s Hilary Fane of the absolutely delightful Business as Usual by Jane Oliver (with fabulous line drawings by Ann Stafford). Hilary is the daughter of an Edinburgh professor, recently engaged to an up-and-coming obstetric surgeon, and she gets the novel idea to support herself with a job (the thought of it!) in the year before her marriage. Her well-meaning middle-class parents are astonished and her fiancé is, frankly, horrified. But Hilary decamps for London with a month’s worth of savings and lands herself a temp gig in the book department of “Everyman’s” (a thinly disguised Selfridge’s). Through a combination of luck and pluck she works her way up, and her letters charmingly depict the drudgery of a “nine-to-six” with cheer and humor. I laughed out loud on almost every page.

Lastly, I can’t leave out one of my favorite literary letter-writers: Anne Shirley. Anne of Windy Poplars (or Windy Willows as it’s known in Canada and abroad – obviously that’s the correct title but I grew up with the American version so what can you do?) is not an entirely epistolary novel, but Anne’s letters figure prominently in the text, and major segments of the story are told in her voice, writing to sweet, dashing Gilbert Blythe. Anne describes her trials and tribulations as the principal of a rural school while she waits out her engagement – she gets off to a bumpy start but, characteristically, charms everyone in the end. It’s always a joy to dive back into her letters with their lively chatter of cats, and Rebecca Dew, and Katherine-with-a-K.

What are your favorite epistolary novels?