Got a box full of letters, think you might like to read

March 2, 2021 1:04 PM

The Brienne Collection (previously) is an astonishing trove of thousands of undelivered 17th century letters, many still sealed since the moment they left their writers' hands. A new paper in Nature explains how a high-resolution dental x-ray, combined with a painstakingly-researched knowledge of letter folding techniques, makes it possible to read these letters without ever opening them.
posted by Horace Rumpole (20 comments total)

Finally, the Cardinal can learn what the Queen wrote to the Duke without the Musketeers being the wiser!
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:09 PM on March 2, 2021 [7 favorites]

Also, very cool.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:09 PM on March 2, 2021

I was just looking at this. Amazing. Somewhat similar techniques are being used to recover the contents of extremely fragile ancient texts as well, IIRC.
posted by praemunire at 1:16 PM on March 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is amazing.
It almost makes it seem like science has some beneficial applications.
posted by signal at 1:26 PM on March 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is amazing

(Also appreciated the Wilco reference, AM is a fine album imo)
posted by dismas at 1:31 PM on March 2, 2021 [9 favorites]

So where can I read one? What did they say?

I'm going to be so disappointed if these are full of middle-school gossip....or maybe it would be awesome to read centuries' old middle school gossip...I guess I won't know how I'll feel til it happens.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:45 PM on March 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

I guess that various government services are already using this to read people's letters without the need to steam them open. Assuming that people still write letters that they want to read that is.
posted by bifurcated at 1:46 PM on March 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Wonderful! Now do Herculaneum!

“… Line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: For with stammering lips and a slow tongue will he speak to this people.” – Isaiah.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:33 PM on March 2, 2021 [5 favorites]

Middle school gossip: Behold! She doth hang upon the cheek of night, like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear. I call on thee by Rosalyn's bright eye, by her high forehead, and her quivering thigh! And, all the demaines that there adjacent lie! You kiss by the book!"

We are going to need some special envelopes, to envelop our letters.
posted by Oyéah at 3:13 PM on March 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

Haven’t thought about that song in years. Well done.
posted by badbobbycase at 3:29 PM on March 2, 2021

AM is the fine Wilco album.
posted by sjswitzer at 5:06 PM on March 2, 2021

Letters held in a postmaster's box for 300 years?? Was the postmaster a DeJoy?
posted by basalganglia at 5:49 PM on March 2, 2021 [9 favorites]

This is absolutely fascinating, and also now I know why I've had Wilco running through my head all afternoon.
posted by cortex at 6:13 PM on March 2, 2021

Was the postmaster a DeJoy?

RTPPA!

Read the Previous Post Already!

(Short answer: No. they were undeliverable for various reasons.)
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:53 PM on March 2, 2021

This is fantastic!

In the early nineties, I attended the International Medieval Studies Congress at Western Michigan University in Kalamzoo. Several MINDBLOWING sessions were on the intersection of new technologies and manuscript studies. Things like the future of publishing critical editions, the potential of hypertext, digital marginalia, etc.

A major topic of conversation, in sessions and during hallway/cafeteria/barstool debates, was: how to leverage all these possibilities to ensure the physical artifact remains intact, and interrogating the gap, the lacuna (or rather the connection, the skein) between the tactile document and the digital facsimile.

All that seems so long ago!

But even then, we talked about nondestructive ways to unfurl the words suspended in manuscripts on just this side of dust.

As Adso said of Brother William of Baskerville...

He seemed unable to think save with his hands, an attribute I considered then worthier of a mechanic: but even when his hands touched the most fragile things, such as certain freshly illuminated codices, or pages worn by time as friable as unleavened bread, he possessed, it seemed to me, the most extraordinarily delicate touch, the same that he used in handling his machines."

I love few things as I love seeing the flourishes and errors, the ordinary workmanship and the personal devotion one can find in a manuscript. Any technology that deepens and extends that discovery is a blessing.
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:23 PM on March 2, 2021 [7 favorites]

Today I learned that “computational origami” exists.
posted by Warren Terra at 2:16 AM on March 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also one of the key team members began working on this when she was 15
posted by deadbilly at 3:08 AM on March 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Somebody much smarter and more talented than me could write a novel based on this that would be beloved by book clubs.
posted by marxchivist at 10:09 AM on March 3, 2021

This is such a great "post". Now I want to know more about letter folding....
posted by mightshould at 2:13 PM on March 3, 2021

I want to know more about what other off label uses we can find for X-ray machines.
posted by waving at 12:11 AM on March 4, 2021