{"product_id":"i-humbly-beg-your-speedy-answer-letters-on-love-and-marriage-from-the-worlds-first-personal-advice-column-hardcover","title":"I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer: Letters on Love and Marriage from the World's First Personal Advice Column - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMary Beth Norton\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA fascinating collection \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eof questions and answers--about courtship, marriage, love, and sex--from a seventeenth-century periodical \u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eAthenian Mercury--\u003c\/i\u003ea one-page, two-sided periodical published in 1690s London--included the world's first personal advice column. Acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Mary Beth Norton's \"\u003ci\u003eI Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer\u003c\/i\u003e\" is a remarkable collection of questions and answers drawn from this groundbreaking publication. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn these exchanges, anonymous readers look for help with their most intimate romantic problems--about courting, picking a spouse, getting married, securing or avoiding parental consent, engaging in premarital sex and extramarital affairs, and much more. Spouses ask how to handle contentious marriages and tense relationships with in-laws. Some correspondents seek ways to ease a conscience troubled by romantic and sexual misbehavior. The lonely wonder how to meet a potential partner--or how to spark a warmer relationship with someone they already have an eye on. And both men and women inquire about how to extract themselves from relationships turned sour. Many of these concerns will be familiar to readers of today's advice columns. But others are delightfully strange and surprising, reflecting forgotten social and romantic customs and using charmingly unfamiliar language in which, for example, \"kissing is a luscious diet,\" a marriage might provide \"much love and moderate conveniency,\" and an \"amorous disposition\" can lead to trouble. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDelightful and entertaining, \"\u003ci\u003eI Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer\u003c\/i\u003e\" provides a unique, intriguing, and revealing picture of what has--and hasn't--changed over the past three centuries when it comes to love, sex, and relationships.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMary Beth Norton\u003c\/b\u003e is the Mary Donlon Alger Professor Emerita of American History at Cornell University. Her books include the Pulitzer Prize-finalist \u003ci\u003eFounding Mothers \u0026amp; Fathers: Gendered Power in the Forming of American Society\u003c\/i\u003e;\u003ci\u003e 1774: The Long Year of Revolution\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the George Washington Prize;\u003ci\u003e In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692\u003c\/i\u003e; and \u003ci\u003eLiberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 216\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 x 8.6 x 5.5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e April 22, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51978227384621,"sku":"9780691253992","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0938\/3185\/6429\/files\/miP3G7q_YK9780691253992.webp?v=1775801135","url":"https:\/\/ishookbooks.com\/products\/i-humbly-beg-your-speedy-answer-letters-on-love-and-marriage-from-the-worlds-first-personal-advice-column-hardcover","provider":"iShook Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}