I've been writing some basic HTML to use as templates for email messages.
The code uses only some inline CSS styling and simple HTML.
The page displays fine in Opera 9 and IE7 but when I send it to myself
to check, the OE flashes the HTML rendering for about 1/2 second
and then displays only the text portion of the page without any
styling or formatting at all.

I created the message from New Message Using = Web page.
My first simplest examples displayed OK.
I've never done this before, so I don't know how to format or code
a page specifically for email. I tried removing the doctype statement
and then later the entire head section leaving just:
html
body
!-- content: p, table, etc. --
/body
/html

I don't know if something is configured wrong in OE or if I'm doing
something wrong with the composition or sending.

Can someone give me some help with this?
I'm kind of lost at this point.

Thanks,
mjc