Communicating Beyond Death: Examining Suicide Letters from England (1757–1849) and Brazil (1920–1929)

ABSTRACT This article explores the ways in which people imagined their suicide letters to be tools of posthumous communication, in both eighteenth- and nineteenth-century London, and early twentieth-century Pernambuco. In examining letters from two places with very different religious traditions; at times of very divergent legal approaches to suicide; and at important points of change, this article seeks to examine both the commonalities and cultural specificities of these letters. Using 67 English and 39 Brazilian letters, it explores the suicide letter as a form of writing. It shows that, although death literally destroyed the possibility of interpersonal exchange, its imminence could make for particularly honest epistolary expressions of emotion. It also argues that, for some writers, death was envisaged as a divide which could be breached.


Introduction
Letters have the ability to cross the distance created by geographic space, bringing people who were hundreds of miles apart into conversation with one another.But such space is not the only distance which letter-writers have envisaged crossing.In many societies both past and present, suicide letters have been imagined as a means to speak posthumously with loved ones, as epistolary remains which might -metaphorically speaking -traverse the space between life and death.While death obliterates most aspects of interpersonal exchange, this article shows that an awareness of its imminence could open up the possibility of particular, and even particularly frank, forms of communication for letterwriters.Relatedly, it emphasises that suicide letters were embedded within very specific dialogues and relationships between people, as well as within particular cultural, legal and religious contexts, which shaped their character and construction.In so doing, it builds upon the work of other scholars, while also being the first historical study to compare suicide letters from two distinct periods and locations: eighteenth-and nineteenthcentury London, and 1920s Pernambuco.
Within the rich and developed historiography of suicide, suicide letters have received fairly limited attention.In many studies, they appear sporadically, as small fragments woven into wider narratives, which are occasionally used to discuss a person's motivation for, or explanation of, their suicide. 1In other studies, they are examined chiefly as documents assessed by other people, particularly medical or legal professionals. 2 There are comparatively few works which examine suicide letters as a communicative form, and which bring together multiple examples of this very particular type of writing.In brief discussions of suicide letters, Victor Bailey, working on Victorian Hull, has noted that they were used by people to 'shape the framework in which their death would be interpreted', while Christian Goesche, working on Nazi Germany, has similarly contended that they were written to 'emphasise a particular suicide motive'. 3The most notable studies of historic suicide letters have been written by Michael Macdonald, Terence Murphy, Eric Parisot and Susan K. Morrissey, who have all explored their discursive qualities.In their studies of eighteenth-century English examples, Macdonald and Murphy have focused on the letters' 'literary models and rhetorical conventions', while Parisot has proposed that we should see the suicide letter as 'an elaborate performance, framed and understood within a codified set of sentimental literary postures'. 4In her work on imperial Russia, Morrissey has similarly considered the literary 'models of self-fashioning' within the examples she finds. 5This article builds on these works, which have been crucial in developing our understanding of the letters' discursive qualities.However, to these more literary approaches, it also seeks to add a historic and relational perspective, which emphasises that these texts are not only, or chiefly, 'performances', but personal attempts to communicate with specific loved ones across the distance of death. 6In doing so, it echoes the work of psychologist Maria Luiza Dias, who has argued that suicide letters are products of the relationships between individuals and their specific social environments. 7s is clear from the examples above, the suicide letter is a form of writing which has existed in many different contexts.Psychologist Antoon Leenaars, comparing letters in the same country over two different, but close, time periods (1945-1954 and 1983-1984), found that they possessed more psychological similarities than differences, as have researchers comparing contemporary letters in different countries. 8But what of letters from two very different historical contexts?This article examines letters written in London (Southeast England) from 1757 to 1849, and Pernambuco (Northeast Brazil) from 1920 to 1929.We have chosen to compare these two archives for several reasons.First, in these periods, as is further explored below, these two countries had very different legal approaches to suicide, with suicide being criminalised in England, and being a noncriminal act in Brazil.Secondly, they had divergent religious traditions, with a Protestant England, and a Catholic Brazil -also influenced by Spiritism -creating very different contexts for experiences of suicidality.Thirdly, there is value in bringing together a country more often explored in the historiography (England), with a country rarely discussed in the Anglophone literature (Brazil).Indeed, traditions of suicide letterwriting in the Global South are under-explored in the Anglophone historiography. 9hese two times and places also illuminate and reflect upon each other in interesting ways, because of their connections and similarities, as well as these notable differences.As discussed more below, in both countries and periods, suicide letters were sometimes published in the newspapers, with this potential for a public audience influencing letterwriters in both.Though divergent in their particulars, both countries were also strongly influenced by religious mores, and patriarchal ideas about gender relations, which are also seen in the texts examined here.Lastly, both of these contexts represent important periods of change within their respective countries, points when, from a Durkheimian perspective, 'modernity' could said to have been encroaching upon older social traditions.While we do not take a Durkheimian perspective, or seek to investigate the relationship between suicide and 'modernity', these two periods represent two significant points in the history of suicide.This article will show that death's distance was a key theme in both the English and Brazilian examples, which was often considered in similar ways.Crucially though, it also emphasises that there were differences in how and why they were written.This study is not a direct, fine-grained comparison of a similar collection of letters; clearly, the English examples cover a much wider period.Instead, in looking at two very different contexts for the creation of suicide letters, it seeks to better understand them as complex, mutable historical artefacts, united by some themes, but also specific to their own time and place.This article thus roots suicide letters not simply in performance, or general considerations of epistolary communication, but in relationships, context, time and place.
It should be noted that surnames have been initialised in order to protect the identity of those who died less than one hundred years ago, but also throughout, for reasons of consistency and parity.Ethical issues are of course raised in any academic exploration of suicide letters (though almost never raised in the current historiography).Every historian is an 'unintended reader' of suicide letters, which necessarily detail some of the most painful emotions of a person's life. 10In using these letters, we not only seek to examine issues of epistolary communication, but also to explore some of the affective experiences captured in these complex and difficult documents, created in very different times from our own.We hope to do so with sensitivity, and appreciation for the many lives ended after their construction.
First, this article will outline the letters' qualities as a source, sketch out some of the contexts in which they were created, and discuss their form.Secondly, it will investigate how writers marked their imminent absence through letters, and communicated with others about their experiences and relationships.In doing so, it reveals that people could draw on the distance created by their expected and imagined deaths to articulate themselves with particular candour, and use the powerful social ruptures caused by their projected non-existence to influence those left behind.Lastly, it discusses how some people envisaged their letters as a means to complicate the communicative divide of death, and even foresaw the continuance of their relationships, as with other materials embedded within broader memento mori cultures of remembrance and continuation.Throughout, this article will draw attention to the ways in which legal, cultural and religious particularities shaped every suicide letter, influencing, for example, the ways in which people did or did not address God; told others how to procedurally respond to their deaths, or narrated the trajectory or reasons for the suicides.

The sources: Context and form
This study uses 106 letters: 67 from London and 39 from Pernambuco. 11All of the Brazilian letters come from 4 local newspapers published in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco: Diario de Pernambuco, Jornal Pequeno, Jornal do Recife, and A Provincia. 12In 1920s Brazil, the act of suicide was not criminalised, and there were no posthumous punishments for those who killed themselves.However, the authorities still investigated suicides and attempted suicides in order to rule out foul-play.The police collected testimonies from witnesses and from individuals who survived.Coroners were asked to perform an autopsy on the body, or a forensic examination in cases of attempts.These reports were then sent to a judge who, at least from 1927 onwards, closed the case.These investigations were often reported in newspapers and, if they had been found, suicide letters were sometimes transcribed.Some individuals left more than one letter, as was the case with 13 people, with the largest number of letters left being 11.Notably, not all letters were published.40 out of 79 suicide letters mentioned in Pernambuco newspapers in the 1920s were referenced or discussed, but not copied.In these cases, journalists still often included information -for example, to whom letters were addressed -and where relevant, this information is considered here.Unfortunately, the original letters from this period have been lost in Recife, so we are wholly reliant upon newspapers.
The English sample is more mixed, as some English manuscript letters survive.Of the 67 letters examined here -which were all found in London − 31 are original manuscripts, while 36 were found, transcribed in full (most suicide letters being a page or two), in a variety of local and national newspapers. 13Most of the manuscript letters were discovered in coroners' inquests.In England, throughout the whole period under study, suicide was illegal.Coroners were required to investigate not only if someone had killed themselves, but whether they has been insane at the time of death, as 'lunatics' were exempted from the legal punishments for suicide. 14Suicide letters were often brought to the coroner to evince a suicide, and sometimes the (in)sanity of its author, and coroners sometimes chose to keep them in the inquest files, some of which have been preserved.As we will see, this legal context could affect the content and intention of a suicide letter, with English letters sometimes, for example, addressing the coroner and discussing their (in)sanity in the eyes of the law.This did not happen in Brazil.English manuscript letters have been used because, where possible, it is useful to examine these documents in their original form.Suicide letters were 'material as well as textual objects', but their materiality -which was used to convey meaning -was lost when they were transcribed in newspapers. 15Manuscript letters are also more likely to be genuine, and have not been selected by journalists. 16However, published English examples have also been used, as newspapers were still the only means through which many suicide letters survived, copied down by journalists who attended inquests.It is also important to look at published examples in both countries.It is notable that, in both places, suicide letters were deemed to be of interest, and import, to a newspaper audience, hence this mixed sample of sources.
In both places, certain groups of people were more likely to leave suicide letters.Some of this is reflective of the wider demography of suicide incidence, the data for which, it must be noted, is imperfect.In Pernambuco, the majority (sixty-three percent) of suicide letters were left by men in their late teens and twenties, which corresponds with young men's greater vulnerability to suicide in Brazil during this period. 17That said, letterwriters were not totally reflective of those most likely to kill themselves.Looking across all age groups, over ninety percent of the people in Pernambuco who left letters were men, while only sixty-one percent of suicides were enacted by men at this time. 18While seventy-six percent of the letter-writers (with known occupations) were in white-collar jobs, only forty-two percent of men who killed themselves, or attempted suicide, in 1920s Pernambuco worked in white-collar professions. 19At this time, illiteracy rates were high, with less than thirty percent of people -and even less women -being able to read or write. 20While people with poor or partial literacy sometimes wrote suicide letters -such as José S., a common labourer who left a letter 'written in terrible penmanship and worse spelling' -letter-writers were skewed towards being educated men in professional jobs. 21his partly explains why letter-writers were over two times more likely to kill themselves with firearms, with the pistol's brands even included in the news reports (e.g.Mauser and Comblain) as indicators of high social status. 22In Brazil, letter-writers were thus partly reflective of those who were more likely to kill themselves, but also those who had the socio-educational and gendered status to put their suicidal feelings into written words.
In London, those who left suicide letters were seemingly more closely reflective of those more vulnerable to suicide in this period, particularly when we examine manuscript letters.Seventy-eight percent of them were left by men, which strongly reflects the fact that seventy-seven percent of suicides were enacted by men in England during this period. 23Data from coroners inquests suggests that seventy-seven percent of suicides were enacted by members of the 'lower orders', such as labourers and tradesmen. 24eventy-eight percent of those who left manuscript suicide letters were similarly of lowly status, often written in shaky English. 25In mid-eighteenth-century England, around sixty percent of people had basic literacy, increasing a little over the next hundred years. 26These higher literacy rates could partly explain the greater proportion of English suicide letters left by working-class individuals.However, another mechanism may also have been at play, which illuminates some of the discrepancy between the English and Brazilian letters.If we examine the English newspaper letters, only thirtyeight percent were written by members of the lower orders. 27Although the sample size is small, this suggests that newspapers were significantly more likely to publish the letters of more elite individuals, perhaps because they contained language and ideas which appealed to a more privileged audience.Given the lack of manuscript letters in Brazil for this period, we cannot know whether this was also the case there, but it is possible that newspaper publication skews our understanding of who was leaving suicide letters in both periods.In terms of the method of death, the English sample is more mixed than the Brazilian, with one-fifth of individuals each choosing hanging, poisoning and shooting. 28his again is more reflective of the varied methods used by those who killed themselves.In this way, both samples of letters are embedded within the particular social and demographic contexts for suicide in each place, but the English letters, featuring both manuscript and newspaper examples, may be less skewed towards the representation of wealthier individuals.
In both contexts, people chose to write suicide letters in certain ways, often in line with, or utilising, important epistolary conventions.In one respect, suicide letters were 'semi-public documents': writers knew that the police, the coroners' court, and perhaps even the newspapers, would become venues for the reception and distribution of their words. 29That said, most of the time, they were also primarily addressed, and intended, for certain known recipients, and embedded in specific dialogues with them, as with other types of correspondence.As Dariusz Galasiński notes, the expressions and explanations within suicide letters 'are rarely constructed in unambiguous, explicit terms', but rather in terms that are dependent upon people's specific relationships. 30Seventy-eight percent of the Brazilian letters, and seventy percent of the English letters, were explicitly directed to certain people. 31As with other letters, they were also frequently addressed to that person at the beginning of the text: 'My dear bride', 'To the police' and 'Mr Lima' in the Brazilian examples, and 'My dearest Father, 'My dear Read' and 'To Mrs Straw-bridge' in the English ones. 32In the manuscript English examples, we can see that these addresses were usually written in the top left, as was customary for letters, indicating that writers often obeyed epistolary conventions concerning space [see Figure 1].
The importance, and specificity, of such addresses is particularly apparent in cases where people wrote multiple suicide letters, directed at different individuals.In Pernambuco in 1920, Ezequiel L. left three suicide letters, one for his friend, another for an insurance company manager, and one for 'Mr police chief'. 33While the letter to his friend contained precise explanations which referred to shared knowledge -such as the detail that 'I haven't slept almost since Mom died' -the letter to the police-chief, which is very different in tone, assumes no mutual knowledge, and even promises that 'Dr.Pedro Celso will be able to give you more detailed information'. 34Similarly, John B., a poor hostler who killed himself in London in 1783, left two suicide letters, one for his employer and one for a friend.While the letter to his employer is full of scorn, with John claiming that he has 'Behaved Like a scondrel [sic] to me', the letter to his friend assumes that John can rely on him to settle his affairs, and even advocate on his behalf, by telling  ' [Mr] Cockrin that he is a Great villain'. 35Far from being general statements to the world, the suicide letters of Ezequiel and John were embedded in specific social relationships with their four very different recipients, as was generally the case.
That said, even if most writers addressed their letters to certain people, the suicide letter's peculiar status as an (intended) posthumous text, also allowed authors to alter the conventions of address, and direct themselves towards an entity which represented, or constituted, something more than an ordinary human recipient.Edward H., who killed himself in 1782, left a suicide letter which was addressed to 'God' himself, using a rightjustified opening-line, as would be used with any other addressee. 36He explained why he had been driven to suicide, and ended with a hope of forgiveness, which contracted contemporary teachings about the religious consequences of suicide. 37Everyday letters were used to communicate with the living, but the imminence of Edward's death, and the significance -and even spiritual danger -of this act, gave Edward the emotional and epistolary space to direct his letter to a higher power; it helped to collapse the spiritual distance between Edward and God.Given the Protestant tradition of spiritual autobiographies, within which people sometimes addressed God, it is interesting that God is only ever addressed like this in the English letters, rather than the Brazilian examples.However, in a different way, the Brazilian letters could address a higher power.In 1928, Segundo C., a Spaniard living in Recife, left a suicide letter in which he addressed Brazil itself.He expressed that My beloved Brazil, hospitable, Brazil, adored captivity, beloved Brazil of my heart, Brazil I ask for your forgiveness.The beloved faults I committed inside your soil!Goodbye people of Pernambuco.Goodbye women!-Segundo'. 38 addressing himself to Brazil as a whole, Segundo allowed the letter to become a much broader statement about his experience living in the country, and an apology for the crimes he had committed.Before he attempted suicide, Segundo shot his lover, a sexworker.In Pernambuco, it was very common for young men to engage in sexual and emotional relationships with sex-workers; Segundo's is not the only case in which the author's difficult relations with a sex-worker were referenced, something which is notably absent from the English examples. 39In both of these letters, the imminence of death allowed writers to address their letters to a higher, or wider, audience, but also an audience which spoke to their particular socio-historical context: Edward's hope for a forgiving God, and Segundo's guilt over the violence committed in his new country.Interestingly, the letters also, both, spoke to feelings of dishonour, with Edward's relationship with God, and Segundo's relationship with Brazil, punctuated by a sense of shame, which shaped concerns about reputation and identity, even in death.
Just as most suicide letters addressed their recipients, most also ended with a signature.Seventy-two percent of the Brazilian letters, and seventy-five percent of the English letters, finish with a signature. 40As Betty Samraj and Jean Mark Gawron note, suicide letters are 'inscriptions that accompany an act', and by finishing with a signature, letter-writers gave authorship not only to their words, but to their suicides. 41The English manuscript letters reveal that these signatures were usually written on the bottom-left, indicating that authors sought to mimic, in terms of form, typical, quotidian epistolary interactions, thus bridging distance between every-day life and beyond (see Figure 2).When Brazilian letters were signed, authors usually finished with only their names, or with a conventional valediction: 'Cecilio', 'Altamir de Mendonça', 'Your sincere -N. A. March'. 42Interestingly, when the English letters were signed, people sometimes emphasised their sadness or desperation with an epithet before their name: 'the unhappy Jacob', 'a Poor Unfortunate Object/G D', 'the unfortunate and miserable ROBERT'. 43In England at this time, it was common for letter-writers to sign their names with phrases such as 'your loving daughter' or 'your faithful friend', with suicidal authors thus employing, but adapting, such a custom to instead emphasise their pain and suffering.In this way, suicide letters were epistolary objects, usually written for specific recipients, and obeying important conventions.However, their unique status as (intended) posthumous texts also encouraged authors to adapt epistolary practices in order to express themselves in particularly emotive or striking ways.

Communicating across distance: Absence, narratives and emotional expressions
Now to examine, more deeply, how people communicated in suicide letters, and marked, or even utilised, the imagined distance wrought by their projected deaths.Firstly, letterwriters often sought to explicitly denote or evidence their absence, with suicide letters acting as signs of death or inexistence.Sometimes, this was indicated with explicit phrases.In London in 1849, F. B. M. began his suicide letter by expressing that 'When you receive this I shall have ceased to exist', while in Recife in 1926, Albano C. commenced his letter by explaining that 'When you receive this, I will already be a corpse'. 44.Similarly Roberto G. ended his letter 'Yours -Bertinho.Hug yours for me', with the instruction to 'hug' the recipient's loved ones emphasising that Bertinho was now unable to do so. 45By starting or ending letters thus, authors clearly indicated that they, and the recipient, were now -on reading -separated by the gulf between existence and non-existence, bringing the time-lapse between writing and reception into focus.This absence could also be marked in other ways.In both places, writers often used suicide letters to settle their earthly affairs, and ask recipients to help distribute belongings or pay debts.Authors thus made their letters act as wills -traditional legal markers of death -and also emphasised that they were now unable to manage these affairs.In a letter in 1782, Thomas H. asked his friend to 'Set my things and burry mi and if any Left give them to my Sistars and my Cloaths to them the Buckles and brass Buckles I think will pay you . . .Hope you se my Lodger Settled'. 46Similarly, in his suicide letter of 1921 in Pernambuco, Manoel L. asked his employee to, 'From this money, take one hundred and forty thousand réis and pay Mr. Ramiro the rent on the house.Give the rest to my wife and say it's to buy the last bread for my children'. 47In writing instructions like these, authors marked their death by passing their material items, and the responsibility for them, onto the living.They also, notably, assumed a level of responsibility between themselves and the recipient, a hope that, even in their non-existence, ties of friendship would remain.
Suicide letters were not only concerned with marking absence or settling pecuniary affairs.They were also used to intervene in social affairs, or to endow a suicide with meaning.Writers often sought to have the 'last word' about their life and actions. 48etters could thus be used to endure in place of spoken communication, while also using the finality, and tragedy, of the author's death to settle interpersonal conflicts they had endured in life.For example, in Pernambuco in 1928, Nair B. wrote a letter to her husband in which she explained that: death for me is rest, because a falsehood that is not deserved forces me to, the sleep of eternity, and my spirit will be persecuting you and everyone.I will not abandon you and all those who were accomplices in my death.This way, you can believe that I was never false and I end this full of pain, bathed in tears.Of thy wife -Nair. 49ir had been accused of adultery, and used her suicide letter to contest the accusation: she 'was never false'.The posthumous nature of Nair's account gave it power, as it was her final word on the affair; there was also, perhaps, an awareness that her suicide letter might be published, which would have made her narrative powerful in its publicity.Further, Nair's promise, that she would forever 'persecute' those who had accused her, gave her posthumous status an additional potency -she would, as a dead woman, be able to haunt those left behind.In 1920s Brazil, female reputation was closely tied to expectations of chastity and fidelity, and by writing this letter, Nair sought to restore these important vectors of honour, albeit posthumously. 50air's letter also demonstrates that spiritual beliefs went beyond Catholicism in Brazil.In 1920s Recife, the services of psychics and fortune tellers were popular, and 'spiritist societies could function "freely"' after receiving authorisation from the police. 51Spiritism in Brazil had its own peculiarities during this period, as it was often confused with macumba, which drove white Brazilians' attempts to differentiate spiritual practices with African roots from those with European origins. 52Thus emerged the categories low Spiritism (baixo espiritismo), and high Spiritism (alto espiritismo), also simply termed Spiritism.The former was associated with Afro-Brazilian religions and the Afrodescendant population, and was often the most criminalised, while the latter followed the doctrine of Allan Kardec, and sought to be considered as modern and scientific, as it was more popular among the white middle class and elite. 53However, both practices were at times associated with suicide.A local Catholic Church in Pernambuco, Matrice of Piedade, even accused Spiritism of encouraging people to kill themselves, since an unhappy person would seek suicide in the hopes of being reborn into a better life. 54ita C., for example, was having marital problems before her suicide, and went to a 'spiritist session' where her suspicions of her husband's infidelity were confirmed.Rita then killed herself, to which the Jornal Pequeno stated that 'low spiritism hastened the tragic resolution'. 55Thus, the presence of the supernatural and spirits was not that uncommon among the population of Recife, and although it is unknown if Nair was a believer or not, her letter suggests such a possibility, as she envisaged that her spirit would stay to antagonise her husband and those who falsely accused her.
In England too, writers sought to have the 'last word' on conflicts or accusations.Compared with the Brazilian authors, English letter-writers were more likely to indicate that they had been accused of a legal offence.In his suicide letter, Edward H., mentioned above, addressed an accusation which had been made about him.He wrote that: I never Lay with Whoman Nor Girl Since I have bun Married to my Wife and as to that Gerl that I am Accused with in Edge Lane I never Ingerd Nor hurt [her] but gave her the best of Advice . . .she Could Not Persuade me to go with her 56 Edward had seemingly been accused of assaulting a local woman, but did not have 'Money to stand Trial'. 57He used his suicide letter to defend himself, pointedly asserting that he 'never Ingerd Nor hurt [her]'.Similarly, in 1798, John C. wrote a suicide letter in which he defended himself against criminal charges.John was a butler, and his former employer had accused him of stealing wine.John explained that his employer 'Rob[bed] me of my Character' by accusing 'me of things I know not', and bemoaned that 'The Expence of Law I cannot Support' -he could not afford to defend himself in the courts. 58Both men thus used written words, marked by the power of their deaths, rather than the courts, in order to exonerate themselves, with suicide letters representing a final act of agency.
Within these examples, it is clear that honour, and its loss or restoration, could be central to suicide letters.In Brazil in particular, dishonour was seen as a crucial cause of suicides, with Dr Quintino Castellar stating in his 1927 medical thesis that dishonour was closely linked with despair and suicide. 59Thirty-three percent of letter-writers in Pernambuco explicitly referenced issues of honour, compared with only eighteen percent in London. 60In Brazil, this honour was deeply rooted in social standards normalised by the state and Catholic Church, and often tied to expectations of masculinity and financial respectability. 61This is evident in the Pernambuco letters, as most of the letters referencing honour were left by men, and connected to issues of financial disgrace, both familial and occupational. 62In this context, death could be presented as a way of escaping dishonour, and even of re-establishing it through the power, and finality, of the author's absence.In 1921, Telesphoro A. began his suicide letter by expressing that one must have 'Dignity, or death.Souls without conscience tried to tarnish my dignity . . .Having honour and seeing it hurt, death is a thousand times preferable'. 63Telesphoro thus portrayed death as an escape from shame and dishonour, but also, perhaps, as the restoration of honour.While unconscionable 'souls' had 'tried to tarnish' his dignity, by removing himself from them, Telesphoro was separated from, or even above, their denunciations. 64n other letters, in the face of dishonour, male writers seemingly endeavoured to inscribe their deaths with a masculine nonchalance about self-inflicted violence.In a short, matterof-fact letter of 1920, Luiz M. Jr. explained that 'After much enjoyment, death appears.I spent everything I had and the only consolation is the revolver', with his gun, a symbol of masculine violence, marked sardonically as a 'consolation' to his financial dishonour. 65uch language was not confined to Brazil: F. B. M. similarly claimed in his brief 1849 letter that 'A pistol will put an end to all my troubles', suggesting that discourses about masculinity, gun-violence and suicide existed in many contexts. 66By talking about their deaths in a certain, even stylised, manner, authors sought to influence how recipients would interpret them.Sometimes, this effort to give authorship to the mode or meaning of death was more explicit.In 1920s Brazil, assisting a suicide was a crime. 67Accordingly, it was not uncommon for letter-writers to address themselves to the police, and explicitly claim that only they were responsible.In 1927, Joaquim T. asked those who saw his letter 'not to criminalise anyone, for no one is the cause', while José V. explained that 'I end my life and no one is to blame'. 68Contrastingly, in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century England, assisting suicide was not a crime; rather, as mentioned, those who enacted suicide were criminalised, depending on whether they had been insane (non compos mentis) or sane (felo de se) at the time of death.Therefore, English authors sometimes directed themselves at the coroner, and made claims about their mental state.In 1844, John S. addressed the coroner, explaining that 'Your trouble will be short, for suicide is a family complaint' -thus suggesting he had a heritable mental illness -while Jacob Miers, in 1772, claimed that he was 'in my sences'. 69In this way, although writers in Brazil and England used letters, in their absence, to portray their deaths, the particular social and legal contexts for their suicides impacted how, or why, this was done.
Suicide letters were thus envisaged as a means of posthumously 'speaking'.But rather than merely presenting an obstacle, in the letters, the prospect of death could also open up the opportunity for particular forms of communication.As already suggested, the fact that these letters accompanied deaths, could already give potency to the words within.Sometimes, authors clearly indicated that they were aware of this, particularly when they sought to blame others.In London in 1769, Mary B. left a suicide letter in which she expressed that the father of her landlord 'Wos my Rewin [ruin] & this i sine [sign] with my dien [dying] hand'. 70In eighteenth-century England, the last words of an executed prisoner had particular cultural potency; by emphasising that she signed her accusation with her 'dying' hand, Mary gave authority to her claims. 71Additionally, the distance of death could allow authors to communicate with those they were unable to speak with in life.In 1929, Bartholomeu F'.s wife Maria left him, and refused to speak with him, or allow him to see their son.When he killed himself, Bartholomeu left a letter to Maria, to express that his 'poor heart [was] broken with pain, pierced by a dagger that you cruelly stuck in me!Not seeing my beloved son!'. 72While Maria refused to communicate with him in life, Bartholomeu's letter allowed him to express himself to her, and elicit guilt or shame, through the community response which was created by his suicide.Because of this letter, the police sought to interrogate Maria, who had fled; in this way, the posthumous power of his words also had an impact on Maria's life in the community. 73he distance presented by death also allowed people to talk honestly about their actions or feelings -being absented from their consequences on earth -but also to have control over what they divulged.Sometimes, it enabled people to admit to crimes.In 1839, George G. sent a suicide letter to the police-office, in which he explained that before you receive this hurried note the body of the murderer of Eliza Grimwood will be in the Thames.Yes, I, and I alone, am the guilty villain who perpetrated the hellish deed, and in a few hours will receive my deserts.He added that he was 'Stricken in conscience', but also that 'With my death will all the particulars be in eternal oblivion'. 74George thus used his suicide letter to admit his crimes, while being able to avoid, as he noted, 'an ignominious death on the scaffold'. 75He also, though, observed that the distance of death would allow the 'particulars' of the murder to remain a secret; it gave him power over knowledge of his violence.
In other letters too, the finality of death enabled people to control what information they revealed.In Recife in 1924, Altamir M., a writer, left a suicide letter for the police, in which he wrote that he was 'Driven by serious displeasure'.He also added that they should not 'bother anyone with stupid questions, since nobody knows the cause of this act of mine and it does not please me to say it'. 76Altamir clearly did not want to explain himself or his actions to the police, and was also confident that no one was, or ever would be, able to know the cause; he remained in control of the narrative of his own death. 77omewhat similarly, in 1927, Candida S. explained in her suicide letter that 'The reason I do this is because of my setbacks and that's the only way I could rest.Forever not to speak, I did not tell you everything because I lacked the elements'. 78Candida S. clearly saw her death as presenting the possibility 'Forever not to speak', and her assertion that she 'lacked the elements' to tell the recipient everything, also suggests that, in both life and death, she felt unable to explain herself fully.
Contrastingly, while the distance created by death allowed some to have control over what they divulged, it also allowed others to speak fully, and with particular candour.Such was the case with John C., mentioned above.John was a butler, working for the Marquis of Titchfield, a person of high nobility.In eighteenth-century England, 'subordination' was 'at the core of employment relations', and servants like John were expected to be highly deferential to their masters. 79However, in his suicide letter, John spoke to his superior with a charged, angry directness.He asserted that the Marquis had 'in one Moment Ruin'd me for Ever without Justice', and that his 'Cruelty [was] too much for an honest Mind to Bear'. 80In speaking to the Marquis with such disdain, and in characterising him as unjust and cruel, John turned servant-master relations on their head, with the distance of death not only giving power to his words, but removing him from earthly consequences.
Anger was not the only emotion which letter-writers felt enabled to express.People could feel able to divulge just how sorrowful and miserable they had felt.In London in 1771, Philip O. left a suicide letter for a friend, in which he felt able to discuss the extent of his suicidal feelings.Noting that he had previously opened up about them, Philip recalled that 'you strove to dissuade me off from so vast an enterprise; I seemed in appearance convinced of my error, put on a smiling countenance, but to no purpose; I never set the resolution out of my head'. 81In life, Philip had been compelled to 'put on a smiling countenance' and hide his suicidal feelings but, now that he was dead, he was able to talk about his resolve to end his life.In other letters, this ability to express deeplyfelt emotions intersected with a sense of closure, and an ability to look back on the author's relationship with the recipient.In 1923, Cecilio P. left a suicide letter for his adoptive parents.He expressed that he left 'this world of misery and shame for no longer bearing the remorse of the act I have committed in this unfortunate world . . .It only remains for me to ask your forgiveness for all the troubles I have caused you on earth'. 82ecilio also thanked them for the 'the good and useful advice which in my messed-up style of living, I never took into consideration', with the prospect of death allowing Cecilio the ability to look back over their relationship, and seek resolution to their divergent perspectives.83 In this way, while death destroyed the prospect of a conversational dialogue, it also opened up the prospect for other forms of communication, which could allow the author to control what they divulged, or even express themselves with particular honesty.

Messaging beyond the grave: Breaching the distance of death
If suicide letters could be used to mark the end of an exchange, suicide could also, at times, be constructed 'as non-final'. 84The distance created by death was not always envisioned as absolute or unbreachable.Sometimes, a sense of distance was challenged when letter-writers foresaw how recipients would react to their suicides and letters.In his angry letter to his employer, John B., mentioned above, wrote that 'you will think of me when i am gone Butt you dont now'. 85While John felt that his employer did not consider him in life, he envisaged that, when he received his letter, he would be unable not to 'think of' him.As such, while recognising that there would be a divide between them -John would be 'gone' -he also imagined that their relationship would, in some respect, continue after death, even taking on new significance.Frequently, letter-writers foresaw the continuance of their relationships with recipients, by asking them to forgive them for past actions, or for their suicides.This was particularly common in Brazil, with thirty-six percent of authors asking that a person would forgive them, compared with six percent in England. 86In this way, their relationship was not completely severed; rather, a sense of connection remained.It is interesting that Brazilians were so much more likely to ask directly for forgiveness in other people, arguably pointing to cultural dissimilarities in the apportioning of blame, which might speak to broader temporal shifts.This was most likely due to confessional differences, as prayers and masses from the living could reduce the time one spent in purgatory.According to José Reis, in the Brazilian tradition, 'souls could travel freely between purgatory and earth', and those who did not pay 'their debts to the living' before dying or 'were not properly buried or mourned' were 'doomed to wander the earth as ghosts'. 87This explains why Pedro G. asked everyone to pray to God for his soul in his letter. 88Notably, in the English examples, it was much more common for people to ask God, rather than other humans, to forgive them. 89No Brazilian letter asked God for forgiveness in this way, perhaps pointing to a greater tendency, within Protestant traditions, to imagine an unmediated relationship between a person and God.
Letter-writers also envisaged the continuance of their relationships in other ways.Sometimes, people asked recipients to pray for them.This was more common in the Brazilian letters, with ten percent of the Pernambuco letters, and only three percent of the London letters, hoping that people would pray for them. 90This is indicative of confessional differences in how Catholic and Protestant people understood the prospect of, and means to, spiritual forgiveness after a suicide, as Catholics were more likely to ask others to mediate between them and God on their behalf 'through prayers and masses'. 91In Pernambuco in 1927, Candida S. requested that her friend, Maria da Gloria, would 'Ask God to put me in a place and always pray for me', with the word 'always' (sempre) indicating that she hoped she would continually be remembered by her friend. 92In one notable example, in 1927, Pedro G. left a suicide letter in which he asked for his house to be sold, and for the money to 'be distributed to a thousand poor people for each of them to pray and beg for me to God . . .All of this earth, please be so kind as to pray to God for my soul'. 93According to João Reis, a final 'act of charity' and the prayers of the poor were considered highly 'beneficial' to 'cleanse' the soul of a deceased rich person. 94In this way, Pedro G. not only envisaged the continuance of the spiritual relationship between himself and the recipient, but hoped that a large number of the local poor, some or many of whom may not have known him in life, would be encouraged to engage in a new relationship with him, after death.As such, while death produced distance, people also hoped that it might produce new connections.
Letter-writers also made other requests, which rested on continuing a sense of responsibility between them and the recipient.This was common with letters between couples.In 1830, Mary A. left a frantic letter in London for her husband to find, which was full of entreaties.Asserting that 'as you have ever let me have my own way', she asked him to, among other things, 'Pay Mrs D this postage', 'Beg Mrs D to write to my dear Girls' and 'keep [her suicide] quiet -& get good kind Mrs D-to assist you'. 95By asserting that her husband had always let her have her 'own way', Mary drew upon their relationship in life, to ask that he remain faithful to her wishes, even in death.This was similarly observed in Pernambuco in 1929, when Hilda N. requested her partner to forgive her and bury her not with flowers, but to 'cover my body with the pages of my poetry book'. 96ilda and her (unmarried) lover's relationship has been difficult, and she had found refuge in poetry.However, by asking him to help her 'take with me what I loved so much', Hilda reaffirmed their connection and self-knowledge, and allowed him to put her to rest. 97Unlike many other forms of death, the self-directed nature of suicide allowed could allow for deep planning and introspection before the act, which is apparent within letters like these.
Notably, in 1920s Brazil, husband's requests to their wives were often rooted in patriarchal expectations of responsibility, which were central to society; as The Brazilian Civil Code of 1916 noted, the husband was 'the legal head of the household', to whom wives were subordinate. 98In 1925, Sebastião O. left a suicide letter to his fiancé, in which he wrote that: Young lady, if I don't die soon, ask yours [her parents] to marry us; since I didn't have happiness on earth, I want to have it in eternity; and that you must fulfil the wishes of a man slandered by humanity, who is forced to put an end to existence. 99 asserting that she must 'fulfil' his 'wishes', Sebastião assumed that his fiancé had a responsibility to serve him, even after death.He also felt entitled to a union with her 'in eternity', and perhaps even sought to guilt her into securing this, as he was a miserable man 'slandered by humanity'.Clearly, Sebastião envisaged the continuance of their relationship 'in eternity', beyond the distance that would exist between them.Similarly, in 1927, Roberto G. left a suicide letter to his fiancé, in which he stated that 'I'll wait for you soon, so we can be together forever.Goodbye -From your unforgettable Bertinho'. 100Rather than being separated by an unbreachable divide, Roberto was 'waiting' for his fiancé.By asserting that they would be reunited 'soon', it is possible that Roberto was wishing for her death or suicide, particularly if compared with his letter to his brother, which merely ends 'Until the day of judgement'. 101This reveals not only an expectation that their relationship would continue, but even an entitlement to a rapid reunion.
In other letters too, people imagined posthumous reunions, and offered them as a hopeful prospect to recipients in distress.In 1825, John N. wrote a suicide letter to his lover, in which he asked her not to 'despair my lovely maid, we shall meet again, perhaps, in a better place'. 102In 1771, Philip O., mentioned above, similarly finished his suicide letter by asserting that 'If I should chance to get into the Elysian Fields, I will keep you a good place', poignantly promising that he would be waiting for his friend with a good spot in heaven. 103In these letters, death was not an unbreachable distance or divide; in the future, their communion would perhaps be possible in a new time or place.
Notably, not all relationships were thought to continue in heaven, or in love and happiness.Occasionally, letter-writers hoped to haunt, or leave a curse upon, those who remained on earth.As noted above, Nair B., clearly envisaged this when she wrote to her husband that 'my spirit will be persecuting you and everyone . . .I will not abandon you and all those who were accomplices in my death'. 104Reclaiming agency over her husband and her accusers, Nair promised that there would never be sufficient distance between, in her new, powerful position as a ghost; though corporeally absent, she would be present in a new and disturbing way.Somewhat similarly, in London in 1846, Emmeline F. wrote a letter to her mother, in which she asked her to talk with her abusive and philandering husband.She requested that her mother 'let him know that my last dying curse was that he may rot and die a despised wretch as he is . . .Judgement will some day overtake [him and his lover]'. 105y making this hope her 'last dying curse', Emmeline gave her words a quasi-mystic potency, and predicted that 'Judgement', in response to his abuse of her, would one day overwhelm him.In their letters, these two women, both living in deeply patriarchal, if very different, societies, reclaimed some agency over men who had mistreated them, by envisaging that they, or their curses, would continue to affect them on earth.By metaphorically collapsing the distance of death, they gave renewed and dangerous potency to their words.

Conclusion
In 1920s Pernambuco, and eighteenth-and nineteenth-century London, people used suicide letters to communicate with those they were leaving behind.Following epistolary conventions, these letters were, most often, addressed to certain people, and embedded in particular, often intimate, dialogues with them.By writing these texts, authors imagined that they were able to communicate across the seemingly unbreachable divide between existence and non-existence.They were able to mark their deaths, and tell certain narratives about their suicides, sometimes using the powerful social and emotional ruptures caused by their deaths to 'settle the score' on conflicts they had endured in life.While death destroyed the prospect of some forms of exchange, through the letters, it also opened up unique forms of communication, allowing authors to consign some knowledge to secrecy, and be fully honest about other information or emotions.As has been revealed, death was not, also, always envisaged as an unbreachable distance between the writer and recipient.Rather, people used suicide letters to anticipate the continuance of their relationships after death.Sometimes, this was through lasting bonds of responsibility while, on other occasions, this was through imagined, semi-mystical reunions.
These discourses -of grievance, resolution, honesty or continuance -existed in both contexts.However, they were always inflected by, and embedded within, each particular society and culture and, more microscopically, within each particular relationship.As this article has shown, confessional differences between Protestant England and Catholic Brazil had noticeable consequences in shaping the ways in which people addressed spiritual issues, with English writers being more likely to address God Himself, and Brazilian authors being more likely to ask others to pray for their souls.Legal differences also shaped the letters' construction, leading English authors to discuss their sanity, and Brazilian writers to talk about others' criminal involvement -or lack of involvement -in their deaths.Indeed, suicide letters were highly relational documents, but given potency, legal significance and, ultimately, their meaning by the social and material world within which it existed.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Suicide letter of Simon Frazer, beginning 'Dear Father' on a right-justified opening line.Westminster inquisitions, Simon Frazer, 28 th & 29 th January 1815, Westminster Abbey Muniment room.I am very grateful to Westminster Abbey Muniment Room for allowing me to photograph this letter and reproduce it here.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Suicide letter with left-justified signature.George Davis, 12th January 1796, City of London inquisitions, London Metropolitan Archives, CLA/041/IQ/02/009/011/03.I'm very grateful to the London Metropolitan Archives for allowing me to reproduce their image.