La Retórica epistolar (1803), de Antonio Marqués y Espejo, como método para facilitar la comunicación escrita en una sociedad moderna

Abstract

This study establishes Marques y Espejo’s Retorica epistolar as a text that is almost entirely a translation from a French work. Marques y Espejo recognized the fact that the more learned, bourgeois society of the time often used letters to communicate. Always attentive to expanding his readership, Marques y Espejo adapted his French source to address the difficulties that many letter writers encountered in Spain. Moreover, by including at the end of his treatise a set of original letters penned by himself, Marques y Espejo reveals his ever-present commitment to improve the situation of women and their education.