SOURCE: “The Sixteenth Century: The First Epistolary Romances in Prose,” in The Beginnings of the Epistolary Novel in France, Italy, and Spain, University of California Press, 1937, pp. 69-79.

In the following excerpt, Kany discusses two sixteenth-century Spanish works that he considers to be the first true epistolary novels, and he examines their influence on European romantic and pastoral literature.

In 1548 … there appeared in Spain the Processo de cartas, a full-fledged epistolary novel made up entirely of prose letters. Fifteen years later (1563) a still longer romance wholly in letter form, Pasqualigo's Lettere amorose, appeared in Italy. These are the only two examples which we have inherited from that period.

Premature efforts at best, their technique fell far short of perfection, and their significance is wholly premonitory. Nor is it surprising that they gave rise to no immediate and direct imitation. The inserted letter of the romance continued its fixed...