Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue -- I Epistolarity: an introduction -- CHAPTER 1 A culture of letter writing -- PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF THE LETTER -- A CULTURE OF LETTERS -- II Epistolary fictions -- CHAPTER 2 Homer: the father of letters -- CHAPTER 3 Letters in the historians -- CHAPTER 4 Staging letters: embedded letters in Euripides -- LETTERS ON STAGE: NECESSARY ADAPTATIONS -- IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS -- IPHIGENIA IN AULIS -- HIPPOLYTUS -- CHAPTER 5 Letters in Hellenistic poetry -- THEOCRITUS AND THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY -- CALLIMACHUS' LOVE LETTERS OF ACONTIUS AND CYDIPPE -- THE APPLE AS LETTER -- STRANGE FRUIT: THE APPLE AS SIGNIFIER -- THE LETTER ARRIVES -- OVID'S CYDIPPE -- ACONTIUS INSCRIPTOR -- III The epistolary novel -- CHAPTER 6 Embedded letters in the Greek novel -- CHAEREAS AND CALLIRHOE -- LEUCIPPE AND CLITOPHON -- AN ETHIOPIAN STORY -- CHAPTER 7 The Alexander Romance -- LETTERS TO THE ENEMY -- EPISTOLARY HEROINES AND LETTERS HOME -- CHAPTER 8 Pseudonymous letter collections -- BENTLEY'S LEGACY -- THE GENRE OF PSEUDONYMOUS LETTERS -- THE ANXIETY OF FICTION -- THE LETTERS OF ANACHARSIS -- THE LETTERS OF HIPPOCRATES AND DEMOCRITUS -- THE "HIPPARCHIA" LETTERS -- THE LETTERS OF PHALARIS -- THE LETTERS OF THEMISTOCLES -- CHAPTER 9 Chion of Heraclea: an epistolary novel -- CHION'S LETTERS HOME -- THE NOVEL IN LETTERS -- IV Epistolography in the Second Sophistic -- CHAPTER 10 The Letters of Alciphron -- JUST ORDINARY MEN (AND WOMEN) -- EPISTOLARY TONE: COMPLAINTS AND ESCAPISM -- EPISTOLARY ROLES: CROSSING THE PAGE -- LOVE LETTERS -- EPISTOLARY SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF WRITING -- CHAPTER 11 Aelian's Rustic Letters -- CHAPTER 12 The Erotic Epistles of Philostratus -- RHETORICAL POSTURES -- DIALOGUE AND LETTER: EPISTOLARITY UNDERMINED -- THE "GROTESQUE".

"FOR I HAVE USED THE APPLE AS A LETTER, TOO" -- Afterword -- Bibliography -- Index.