A fascinating collection of questions and answers—about courtship, marriage, love, and sex—from a seventeenth-century periodical The Athenian Mercury—a one-page, two-sided periodical published in 1690s London—included the world’s first personal advice column. Acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prize–finalist Mary Beth Norton’s “I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer” is a remarkable collection of questions and answers drawn from this groundbreaking publication. In these exchanges, anonymous readers look for help with their most intimate romantic problems—about courting, picking a spouse, getting married, securing or avoiding parental consent, engaging in premarital sex and extramarital affairs, and much more. Spouses ask how to handle contentious marriages and tense relationships with in-laws. Some correspondents seek ways to ease a conscience troubled by romantic and sexual misbehavior. The lonely wonder how to meet a potential partner—or how to spark a warmer relationship with someone they