Abstract

The private letter, one of the most representative expressions of mass literacy, was the product of improved postal services and epistolary manuals. In the nineteenth century, which also witnessed the new phenomenon of mass emigration, letter writing became one of the most common practices. This article discusses the correspondence of José Moldes, an Asturian who left Spain for Puerto Rico at the age of fourteen and settled shortly afterwards in Chile. He died in his native Asturias at the age of sixty-one. Throughout these fifty or so years, José wrote letters to keep in contact with members of his family, to control them when he became head of the household or to manage his businesses and investments. About 120 of his letters survived in the Moldes-Barreras family archive, through which we can reconstruct his experiences. The essential characteristics of this epistolary corpus emerge from an analysis of its material and graphic aspects, suggesting the profound influence of immigration on personal writing.