E P Thompson’s Writing by Candlelight (1980) revisited. Times letter writers on the junior doctors strike (Apr13th)
The late socialist historian E P Thompson (1924-1993) was an enthusiast for letter writing. He wrote many himself although most unfortunately are locked away in the Bodleian for the time being.
He researched the history of aspects of letter writing, along with his researcher E E Dodds, and one result was his essay The Crime of Anonymity which has considerable relevance in 2023 although it was about the first decades of the nineteenth century. It looks at the writing of anonymous letters as threats- often to the rich and powerful-and official efforts to track down and punish the writers. The parallel with social media is considerable.
Thompson also wrote letters to the papers and was entertained particularly by the reactionary nature of some letter writers to The Times.
He would certainly have found at least one of those in The Times (13th April) to be of interest.
Times letter writers have now had their say on junior doctors strikes. They are at root reactionary of course. E P Thompson I sense would have been interested…
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