‘P.S.’: THE DANGEROUS LOGIC OF THE POSTSCRIPT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE

This article examinespostscriptsboth as a feature ofeighteenth-century lettersand as a literary device. Although postscripts could be used for entirely banal purposes such as sending regards or expressing thanks for a gift, their fictional usage was governed by a more specialized set of conventions. The main contention of this article is that the temporal lag between a letter and its postscript allowed novelists such asRichardsonto explore new ways of manipulatingnarrative time. HenryFielding's spoof novella Shamela , with its numerous postscripts, can be seen as an ironic reflection on that aspect of Richardson's novelistic practice.