Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle - Literary Tradition

Literary Tradition

Observational letters, like Irving's Oldstyle letters, are a tradition that date in America as far back as the 1720s, when Benjamin Franklin wrote similar letters to the New-England Courant under the name of Silence Dogood. Franklin had borrowed the form from Joseph Addison, who Franklin admired, and who was known for the gentlemanly "Mr. Spectator" essays he wrote in the Guardian, Tatler and The Spectator in London in the early 18th century. Such essays had been a staple of colonial newspapers, and usually featured an observer –- normally a bachelor, with a personality that differed from that of the writer –- who commented, either directly or indirectly, on public truths.