per litt.

Abbreviation of Latin per litterās (“by letter”).

per litt. (not comparable)

1. By letter; in a message to the author.
   • 2002, Anna Morpurgo Davies, “The Greek Notion of Dialect”, in Thomas Harrison, editor, Greeks and Barbarians, →ISBN, page 169, note 31:

     Jean Lallot (per litt.) obliges me to clarify my thoughts on this subject.

   • 2006, Peter Green, editor, Diodorus Siculus, Books 11–12.37.1. Greek History, 480–431 BC: The Alternative Version, →ISBN, page 169, note 363:

     However, Prof. Rubincam suggests to me, per litt., that Diodorus might, alternatively, here and elsewhere, “have been unconsciously influenced by the different structure of the Roman chief magistracy of two consuls,” an undeniably attractive theory.

   • 2008, Stephen J. Davis, Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt, →ISBN, page 9, note 38:

     It is important to note here that in Origen’s thought ‘the imprisonment of the logikoi in coarse and painful material bodies was not entirely punitive’, […] (Warren Smith, per litt., 16 January 2007).

   • 2017, Josiah Ober, Demopolis: Democracy Before Liberalism in Theory and Practice, →ISBN, page 31, note 26:

     Canevaro 2013, 2015, forthcoming, argues for a somewhat different procedure and suggests (per litt.) that under the new rules, the procedures for making constitutional laws were distinct from and more cumbersome than those for making ordinary legislative decrees.

Used in academic citations, sometimes with a date, to indicate that the cited source is a private communication to the author.