An interesting article from a recent Staffordshire Archives & Heritage Newsletter:
The public website, Material Bodies, Social Bodies, makes accessible many hundreds of letters written by British men, women and children between 1680-1820. The letters were exchanged amongst family, friends and acquaintance and contain a wealth of information about everyday personal life, though also discuss work, politics and public life. Due to rates of literacy, the wealth, time and education required to write letters, and the factors that determine the survival of historical documents, the letters are overwhelmingly from the middle ranks of society and above. The letters have been selected to reflect different regions of Britain, as well as religious denominations (overwhelming Protestant but including some Catholic and Jewish letters), and to reflect an equal number of male and female letter writers.
The letters were collected as part of a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust and supported by the University of Birmingham. That project explores the experiences and ideas about the body, and this is a particular focus of many of the letters included. However, the content of these letters extends into many other areas.