Dear Sir,

I am currently attending school at Berkshire Community College in Massachusetts, and am taking a class on modern fiction, called, oddly enough, Modern Fiction. For this class, we have been given a semester long project with a nebulous goal: write something about fiction. After much deliberation, and owing to the fact that my recent reading has been comprised almost entirely of modern takes on historical, medieval life, I have decided to write about the ways authors portray aspects of medieval life and characters as opposed to a more traditional, Victorian ideal. Also, I hope to use fewer sentences of that length.

I am writing to you to ask a few things. I find the notes at the end of your books wonderfully informative, and wondered if you had any suggestions for books to look into for information about medieval life in general or the fictional archetypes of ‘knight’ or ‘priest.’

I wonder also if you might give your own thoughts on how modern people view our ancestors from that time period. As someone who looks into these things professionally, I had hoped you might share some of your insights into our perception of middle aged people. Or, people from the Middle Ages, rather.

I do thank you if you are able to read this. The other places I plan on looking for fictional accounts of medieval life are: Bernard Knight’s Crowner Series, Ellis Peter’s Cadfael series, Ken Follet’s World Without End, and possibly, for variety, they Vikings television show the History channel pushes.

I’ve never really been sure how to end letters. They always seemed to me to just end so abruptly.

I hope this message finds you well,

Evan Callaghan