Add MS 78298-78429

JOHN EVELYN (1620-1706)

78298-78429. EVELYN PAPERS. Vols. CXXXI- CCLXII. Correspondence and papers of John Evelyn; 1635-1706, with a few earlier and later items. Evelyn, second son of Richard Evelyn of Wotton, was educated at Lewes and Balliol College Oxford, travelled extensively in Europe in the 1640s, married Mary Browne, daughter of the English Resident in Paris in 1647, and settled at her ancestral home, Sayes Court in Deptford (where he created a celebrated garden) from 1652 until 1694. In 1699, on the death of his elder brother without male heirs, he inherited the Evelyn estate at Wotton. Evelyn was a notable lay Anglican, a quintessentially `virtuoso’ member of the early Royal Society and held occasional public office after the Restoration. He wrote and translated for publication for much of his life. Many of the manuscripts described below relate in some way to these projects, but are not always straightforward to categorize or relate to his published works. Very few of the manuscripts of works he actually sent to the press survive; the draft of Numismata (Add. MS 78350) and a few notes for revised editions of Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees (in Add. MS 78344) are the only exceptions. Sylva was a great success, running to four enlarged editions in his life-time, but he also began many projects which were never brought to completion. Several of the manuscripts described below derive from these unfinished works; the most famous being the comprehensive gardening work, `Elysium Britannicum' (Add. MSS 78342-78344). Other text manuscripts were originally intended for private use by himself, his family, friends and employees, but not for publication; his collection of occasional verse (Add. MS 78357), devotional works, conduct manuals (e.g. Add. MS 78386) and directions to his apprentice gardener (Add. MS 78349) are all in this category, though the title, `Directions for the Gardiner at Says Court: but which may be of Use for other Gardens', indicates a wider readership in mind, and some of the devotional manuscripts show signs of his later attempts to `reform' them with possible publication in view. Other manuscript volumes, his letterbooks (Add. MSS 78298-78299) and diary (Add. MSS 78323 and 78325) derive from original records re-written by him in retrospect, apparently without any intention to publish; but some, most notably the diary, brought him posthumous fame by their later publication.

The elaborately compiled general commonplace volumes begun in the 1650s Add. MSS 78328-78331) were never intended for publication in themselves, but only to provide the material for his publications. But collections of a more specific kind, such as recipes (Add. MS 78337) or trade practices (Add. MS 78339), were later included in his lists of what he intended to revise and perhaps publish (Memoires for my Grand-son, pp. 66-67; and see also an earlier list, `Things I would write out faire and reforme if I had Leasure’, in John Evelyn, Diary and Correspondence, ed. William Bray, 1859, II, p. 92). Other manuscripts represent a stage between collecting material and preparation for the press. The manuscripts of the `Elysium Britannicum' clearly show how one stage shades into another. Two `books' of the main text intended for the press survive, though in draft form, but a third `book' is now missing and many of the surviving collections relating to it (Add. MSS 78343, 78344) represent a very rudimentary stage of composition: excerpts and commonplace material marked up with their places in the main work.

Having moved from Sayes Court to London and then to Wotton in his last years, Evelyn left his papers in disorder. Shortly before his death he wrote to his grandson and heir, `Touching my own Writings and papers, as Copys of Letters, Common-place Books, and several unpolish's draughts collected at severall times and confus'dly pack'd up or bound without any order, altogether Imperfect and most of them Impertinent--I would have you burn or other ways dispose of'. Having briefly described the categories of devotional and occasional literary works and listed the chief items by name, he added that there were `innumerable Insignificant Collections and Atempts, desultory and undigested, cast in no method, some hundreds of Authors marked with my blak-lead Crayon, also I intended to have transcribed into Adversaria: but had never leasure: In short--most, if not all, meere Embrios or Trifles, the marks of Time Indiscreetly lost and fit onely to be abolished' (Memoires for my Grand-son, pp. 63, 68). But he did not destroy them himself, nor did his grandson, and although there were some later losses, these represent a comparatively small part of the whole and the archive catalogued below is still recognizable from Evelyn's description of it.

The disorder in which Evelyn left his manuscripts was probably increased by their move from Wotton House in the mid-20th century. By the time the whole Evelyn archive was deposited at Christ Church Oxford in 1949, they had become mingled randomly with those of earlier and later generations of the family. They have now been placed in an order which more clearly reflects their origin and nature, within the following categories:

78298-78322: Letterbooks and Correspondence:

78323-78326: Diary Manuscripts

78327-78333: Commonplace Books:

78334-78352: Manuscripts relating to Virtuoso Projects:

78353-78359: Verse and Drama:

78360-78392: Devotional Manuscripts:

78393-78401: Papers relating to Public Offices and Affairs:

78402-78413: Inventories, Accounts and Wills:

78414-78429: Manuscripts, etc., collected by John Evelyn:

Note that manuscripts relating to Evelyn's library and the estate papers of his period are in categories of their own below, Add. MSS 78630-78643 and Add. MSS 78585-78609 respectively, in order to preserve the continuity of these records through several generations of the family.

Evelyn manuscripts at the British Library and elsewhere are listed in the Index of English Literary Manuscripts 1625-1700, comp. Peter Beal, II (1987), pp. 461-487; Beal numbers are noted where applicable in the catalogue descriptions below. See also the essay collection, John Evelyn and his Milieu, ed. F. Harris and Michael Hunter (British Library, 2003).

One hundred and thirty-one volumes.