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This collection addresses the recent rebirth of interest in immigrant letters. As these letters are increasingly seen as key, rather than incidental, documents in the interpretations of gender, age, social class, and ethnicity/nationality, the scholars gathered here demonstrate a diversity of new approaches to their interpretation.

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Introduction; B.S.Elliott, David A.Gerber & S.M.Sinke PART ONE: LIMITS AND OPPORTUNITIES How Representative are Emigrant Letters? An Exploration of the German Case; W.Helbich & W.D.Kamphoefner The Limits of the Australian Emigrant Letter; E.Richards Marriage through the Mail: North American Correspondence Marriage from Early Print To the Web; S.M.Sinke PART TWO: WRITING CONVENTIONS AND PRACTICES Irish Emigration and the Art of Letter-Writing; D.Fitzpatrick The Importance of Correspondence in Lithuanian Immigrant Life; D.Markelis Epistolary Communication between Migrant Workers and Their Families; M.A.Vargas PART THREE: SILENCES AND CENSORSHIP Epistolary Masquerades: Acts of Deceiving and Withholding in Immigrant Letters; D.A.Gerber Reading and Writing across the Borders of Dictatorship: Self-censorship and Emigrant Experience in Nazi and Stalinist Europe; A.Goldberg PART FOUR: EDITORIAL INTERVENTIONS Polish-American Letters to the Editors of Ameryka-Echo, 1922-1969; A.D.Jaroszynska-Kirchmann Immigrant Letters in the Periodical Press in Late Nineteenth-Century Wales; W.Jones PART FIVE: NEGOTIATIONS OF IDENTITY Negotiating Space, Time, and Identity: The Hutton-Pellett Letters and a British Child´s Wartime Evacuation to Canada; H.Brown The Ukrainian Government-in-Exile´s Postal Network and the Construction of National Identity; K.Lemiski PART SIX: LETTERS AND THE STATE Immigrant Petition Letters in Early Modern Saxony; A.Schunka Emigrant Correspondence with Russian Consulates in Montreal, Vancouver, and Halifax, 1899-1922; V.Kukushkin

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´Rarely does a historical study illuminate subject, methodology, and theory all at once. Letters Across Borders is just such a book. It is a marvelous collection of essays that should be read and re-read by every historian who works in migration studies and indeed by all scholars who seek to understand and interpret the human experience through personal correspondence.´ - Kerby A. Miller, University of Missouri-Columbia

´...a coherent, thoughtfully structured and enlightening overview. Philosophical reflections are blended with methodological discussions and empirical studies, creating an unprecedented and broad-based context within which to study migrant epistolarity...It is a long overdue addition to the historiography of migration and should be obligatory reading for every historian who seeks to get to grips with the pitfalls and rewards of interpreting personal correspondence.´ - Marjory Harper, English Historical Review

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BRUCE S. ELLIOT is Professor of History, Carleton University, USA.

DAVID A. GERBER is Professor of History, University of Buffalo (SUNY), USA.

SUZANNE M. SINKE is Associate Professor of History, Florida State University, USA.

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