Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle - Public Reaction

Public Reaction

The Oldstyle letters were well received in New York—and despite the use of the pseudonym, Irving’s identity as Oldstyle was not a secret. The public enjoyed them, and Chronicle co-publisher Aaron Burr was impressed enough to send copies of the first five letters to his daughter Theodosia, remarking that they "would not, perhaps, merit so high an honour as that of being perused by your eyes and touched by your fair hands, but that the production of a youth of about nineteen, the youngest brother of Dr. Peter Irving of New York."

Irving also had an admirer in Charles Brockden Brown, who unsuccessfully tried to track down Oldstyle to ask his assistance with The Literary Magazine, and American Register that Brown would shortly be editing in Philadelphia.

William Dunlap, manager of New York's Park Theater, also thought highly of Oldstyle, later calling Irving’s letters "pleasant effusions," but noted politely at the time that the irritation Oldstyle was provoking in his actors was "excessive". Even William Coleman at the competing Evening Post thought Irving, for all his Oldstyle bluster, had talent as a critic.