At the time Landon was writing, the postal system was not yet highly developed. In fact, many people (especially in the lower classes) bypassed it altogether; by sending letters by way of passing travelers and relying on hand-delivery, they could avoid postage fees (to be paid by the recipient) entirely. This practice also gave an intimate quality to correspondence. In "The Letter-Bell" (1830), William Hazlitt reflects nostalgically on the emotions and memories evoked by the sound of the letter-bell of the mail carrier, calling it a "conductor to the imagination" (306).

Landon echoes the idea of the affective quality of letters in the headnote to the Medallion Wafer poems: wafer seals "are here devoted to verse," she writes, "on the supposition that they have been employed as seals to lovers' correspondence." Wafer seals were commonly used to close letters, as envelopes were not yet mass-produced, and handmade envelopes required time and disposable income.

The following pages offer transcriptions of, and notes to, the Medallion Wafer poems, grouped according to the installments in which they were originally published in the Gazette. 

Many of the poems are linked to more specifically interpretive essays on medallionwafers.wordpress.com. A more thorough discussion of the exhibit's elements and conclusion(s) can be read here.