"I hope this letter may find you well"

0 Hi, 02br
00It means "I hope you will in good health (well) at the time you receive this letter". 02br
00Yes, it sounds outdated. 02br
00Clive 0-

0How about 'I hope this letter finds you well'? I use that sometimes. 0-

0 Another option : "I hope this letter finds you in good health". 0-

0 Hi guys, 02br
00It was the use of 'may', in particular, that made the expression inthe original query seem outdated to me. These other suggested variations seem a little less so, but with no offence to anyone, I find it hard to believe that a lot of younger native speakers will continue to write this way. (Will they even write at all, or just send cryptic text messages?) 02br

0It may be generational indeed. Clive. I don't use such phrases in anything but more formal letters, of course. If all we have to look forward to is cryptic emails without a punctuation mark in sight, however, I might as well sign off tonight and never come back. 0-

0 Don't go, Mr. M! We promise to keep you well supplied with punctuation! 0-

0 Outdated Vincent! "I hope that you are well' would be my sentence! Lynne 0-

0 I often got letters from Scotland with such expression at the beginning of the letter.02br
02br
00"I hope my email 00finds00 00you00 all very well?"02br
00"I shall" was also often used by that person.02br
00 0-

1i00I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend, Andy.02i02br
02br
01font00from the movie 'The Shawshank Redemption'02font0-

Searching for further information, I saw your question. It was a loooooong time ago that you asked.

The phrase came from a time when letters would "find you". You could send a letter to a person in, say, London, England, and it would be up to the local postal service to find the person, and get the letter to them. If the letter didn't "find you", (perhaps you had gone to visit Italy)