Anglophone women letter-writers who were excluded from the mainstream socio-political British establishment due to their gender, religious affiliation or nationality showed themselves to be adept at deploying the linguistic and material practices of epistolary literacy to secure their place as social brokers. This paper will examine the ‘structure of feeling’ that found expression within, and helped to constitute, what Konstantin Dierks has called the ‘emerging new standard for social interaction’ of conducting friendly relationships by letters. It will consider how women used their epistolary literacy and the bonds of friendship to shape inclusive imagined worlds of faith and feeling.