This issue of French Historical Studies is about letters. It is also of letters or, rather, of emails—today's equivalent: almost a thousand of them, after a cursory count, among four editors and six contributors, spread out over eighteen months as the issue goes into production in September 2020. These have been long and short, dense with form and content or monosyllabic in response to a precise question. Some have been addressed individually, others collectively; several have been forwarded to other people as well. They have been written at all times of day and night, over five to six hours' time difference, at office desks, on bus seats, and in bed. Sent from institutional email accounts, personal ones, computers, smartphones, or tablets, they have been received and (presumably) read in an equally wide range of settings and setups.