An epistolary novel tells its story through correspondence, letters, telegrams, and the like. Here are some examples of contemporary epistolary novels:
AuthorTitle of Work Year Format Other Comments Aravind Adiga The White Tiger 2008 Letters Written as a series of letters to "His Excellency Wen Jiabao, The Premier's Office, Beijing" Cecelia Ahern Where Rainbows End 2006 E-mail, letters, and notes Cecelia AhernLove, Rosie2005Letters and emails Avi Nothing But the Truth 1991 Dialogue transcripts, telephone conversations, letters, telegrams, diary entries, and memos Mariama Bâ So Long a Letter (Une si longue lettre) 1980 Considered a classical statement of the female condition in Africa Nick Bantock Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence 1991 A series of postcards and letters inside envelopesOriginally the first book in a trilogy, The Griffin and Sabine Saga, Bantock wrote another trilogy in the same format to extend the story in The Morning Star TrilogyJohn BarthLETTERS1979 Letters from seven writers, some addressed to the "author", plus one will codicil Wolfgang Bauer The Feverhead 1967 Letters of two friends that cross all the time, ending in a mise en abyme Matt Beaumont e 2000 E-mail Saul Bellow Herzog 1964 Letters Real and imagined letters written by the protagonist Moses E. Herzog to family members, friends, and celebrities John Berger From A to X: A Story in Letters 2008 Letters Letters from A'ida to her imprisoned insurgent lover, XavierGeraldine BrooksMarch2005Letters Emma Bull and Steven Brust Freedom and Necessity 1997 Letters and diary entries Octavia E. Butler Parable of the Sower 1993 Diary entries Octavia E. Butler Parable of the Talents 1998 Diary entriesMeg CabotThe Boy Next Door (Boy, #1)2002EmailsFirst in series of four books. Orson Scott Card Ender's Shadow Saga 1999 emails Each chapter begins with a correspondence between two characters with limited context, then segues into traditional narrative Kate Cary Bloodline 2005 Letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles A sequel to Dracula and thus mimicks the writing format of Bram Stoker's classic novel Stephen Chbosky The Perks of Being a Wallflower 1999 Letters Beverly Cleary Dear Mr. Henshaw 1983 Letters and diary entries Lynn Coady The Antagonist 2011 Monologic epistolary novel conveyed through increasingly unanswered email messagesDouglas Coupland Microserfs 1995 Diary entries maintained on a PowerBook The Gum Thief 2007 Journal entries, letters, e-mails, writing exercises, and one work memo Andrew Crumey Mr Mee 2001 Mark Z. Danielewski House of Leaves 2000 Fictional manuscript, letters, editorial footnotes, appendices, fictional interviews Patrick Sheane Duncan Dracula vs. Hitler 2016 Fictional author's note, manuscripts, war dispatches Mark Dunn Ella Minnow Pea 2001 Ibid: A Life 2004 Alfredo Bryce Echenique Tarzan's Tonsillitis 2001 First person narrative with letters Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone This Is How You Lose the Time War 2019 Communicated as letters, however the modalities are science fiction and not literal letters. Ben Elton Inconceivable 1999 Diary entries. Dialogic comedic novel about a couple trying to conceive. They each write their thoughts as a form of therapy to help them in this goal. Helen Fielding Bridget Jones's Diary 1996 Diary entries Michael Frayn The Trick of It 1989Carlos FuentesLa silla del águila (The Eagle's Throne) 2002 Letters and diary entries Written as a series of letters between high-ranking officials in the Mexican government and persons aspiring to high office. The letters are being written (in 2020) because all telecommunications in Mexico have been disabled by the United States. Daniel Glattauer Gut gegen Nordwind (German) 2006 Email E-mail correspondence between a man and a woman who fall in love despite never meeting Daniel Handler Why We Broke Up 2011 A letter Illustrated by Maira Kalman Robert Irwin Satan Wants Me 1999 Diary from 1967. David Ives Voss 2009 Letters J.B. Jackson Shagduk (De re dordica, Book 1) 2022 Diary entries; letters. Diary of a librarian who in the course of investigating a professor's disappearance accidentally summons a demon. J.B. Jackson Ursula of Ulm (De re dordica, Book 2) 2024 Diary entries; letters; found manuscript. The continued adventures of a librarian who dabbled in the occult and set off a chain of alarming events. Kij Johnson The Fox Woman 1999 Extracts from diariesAmie Kaufman & Jay KristoffIlluminae (Illuminae Files, #1)2015Reports, emails, texts, audio transcriptsFirst in series of three books. Bel Kaufman Up the Down Staircase 1965 memos, notes dropped in the trash can, student papers, lesson plans, notes from students, and letters to a friend from college A classic mid-1960s portrayal of an urban high school that is a microcosm of the New York City school system that was also made into a film Lucy Kellaway Who Moved My Blackberry? 2005 Email Novelisation of the author's Financial Times column featuring Martin Lukes. Most emails are from Lukes himself, so the reader deduces the content of emails he is replying to. Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon 1966 Journal An expanded version of Keyes' 1959 short story of the same name. This book is the journal of mentally disabled janitor, Charlie Gordon, who temporarily becomes a super-genius during a medical experiment. Through changes in grammar and style, Charlie's mental rise and fall are presented. Michael Kimball Dear Everybody 2008 Letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles The unsent letters of Jonathon Bender, detailing his thoughts from 1966 to 1999 Stephen King Carrie 1976 Traditional narrative fused with journal articles, interviews, AP ticker reports, and court transcripts The Plant 2000 The story is told through various letters, and memos Unfinished Steve Kluger Last Days of Summer 1998 Letters, postcards, progress reports, and newspaper clippings. A series of letters during the 1940s between a twelve-year-old and a rookie baseball player Almost Like Being in Love 2004 The story is told primarily through diary entries, newspaper clippings, office documents, letters, e-mails, menus, Post-It notes and checklists, with only minor reliance on narrative. Elizabeth Kostova The Historian 2005 Letters Letters, excerpts from books and academic literature, and the narrator's reconstructions of stories told to her by her father.Doris LessingShikasta1979Letters and reportsPresented as reports on the state of Earth's inhabitants, to a space-faring bureaucratic civilization, authored by one of their own members - Johor, the novel's narrator/protagonist—who incarnates into society to live among humans across several lifetimes in various eras of history. Part 1 of a 5-novel cycle Canopus in Argos: Archives. Mac Lethal Texts from Bennett2013 Text messages "A family story for the twenty-first century, based on the phenomenally popular Texts from Bennett Tumblr blog, this epistolary novel chronicles the year that Bennett and the rest of his freeloading family moved into his cousin Mac's household" through text messages exchanged between Mac and his cousin Bennett. David Llewellyn Eleven 2006 Email Emails sent on a single day, between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tim Lucas The Book of Renfield 2005 Diary entries, dialogue transcriptions A book about the character of Renfield from Dracula and thus mimics the format of the novel. Excerpts from Bram Stoker's novel are integrated into the plot John Marsden Letters from the Inside 1991 Letter The story is told in the form of letters exchanged between 15-year-old girls, Mandy and Tracey, who begin writing after Tracey places an ad in fictional magazine GDY David Mitchell Cloud Atlas 2004 Journal, letter, books (thriller, autobiography), interview transcript, oral history Nested narrative set across various time periods with each manuscript being 'read' at some point by the next narrator. Made into a film in 2012. Hubert Monteilhet Les Mantes Religieuses (The Praying Mantises) 1960 Made into a BBC television film in 1982 Le Retour des Cendres (Return From the Ashes) 1962 Made into a film starring Maximilian Schell in 1965 Vladimir Nabokov Ada 1969 Luis López Nieves Voltaire's Heart (Spanish) 2005 E-mail Amélie Nothomb Life Form 2010 Letters Fictional correspondence between the author and a U.S. soldier, reflects on how writing creates reality. Amos Oz Black Box 1986 Tim Parks Home Thoughts 1999 C.D. Payne Youth in Revolt 1993 Journal entries Christopher Priest The Prestige 1995 Letters and diary entries Christopher Priest The Islanders 2011 Gazetteer Bob Randall The Fan 1977 Letters and telegrams Deals with the subject of stalking, but was written years before it became a criminal offense; the title character, Douglas Breen, is shown, in his letters, to be an unreliable narrator and an erotomaniac who turns the blame for things he does onto others Luane Rice and Joseph Monninger The Letters 2008 Letters Rosie Rushton and Nina Schindler P.S. He's Mine! 2001 E-mail H. F. Saint Memoirs of an Invisible Man 1987 Narrative manuscript This entire novel is put forth as a letter or manuscript, the first-person narrative of the author/protagonist, written down and left for someone to find, to learn of what has befallen him Maria Semple Where'd You Go, Bernadette 2012 Emails, memos, transcripts, etc. Lionel ShriverWe Need to Talk About Kevin2003LettersThis book consists of letters from Eva, the mother of Kevin, to her husband Franklin Gary Shteyngart Super Sad True Love Story 2010 Diary entries and digital communication records The book takes alternating narratives through protagonist Lenny Abramov's diary and his love interest's "GlobalTeens" account (an instant messaging technology) Lee Smith Fair and Tender Ladies 1988 Letters Lemony Snicket The Beatrice Letters 2006 Letters and notes The book explains some of the mysteries surrounding the Baudelaires. The letters are between Lemony and Beatrice. As in The Unauthorized Autobiography pictures and letters allow readers to guess about the author's life. Carl Steadman Two Solitudes 1995 E-mail Caroline Stevermer and Patricia Wrede Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot 1988 Letters "Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country" (set in a Regency England where magic works) The Grand Tour 2004 Diary extracts and testimony "Being a Revelation of Matters of High Confidentiality and Greatest Importance, Including Extracts from the Intimate Diary of a Noblewoman and the Sworn Testimony of a Lady of Quality" (immediate sequel to the work above) The Mislaid Magician or Ten Years After 2006 Letters "Being the Private Correspondence Between Two Prominent Families Regarding a Scandal Touching the Highest Levels of Government and the Security of the Realm" (takes place ten years after the previous two books) Sue Townsend Adrian Mole series 1982–2009 Diary entries Alice Walker The Color Purple 1983 Letters and diary entries Thomas Wharton Every Blade of Grass 2014 Letters interspersed with narrative and images A man and woman who live a continent apart write letters to one another about their discoveries of the wonders of natureMax BrooksWorld War Z2006Collection of individual accounts Narrated by an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission after a zombie plague