Add MS 78323-78325

EVELYN PAPERS. Vols CLVI-CLVIII. `Diary’ of John Evelyn, covering the period bef. 1620 till shortly before his death in Feb.1706; comp. [aft. 1660]-1706. Mostly autograph. Evelyn first began to keep diary notes as a school-boy, in imitation of his father (Diary, I, p. 8). An early example of these almanac entries of 1636-7 is now in Balliol College, PRT. 670.a.13. Another example of 1647 is unlocated after sale at Sotheby's, 23 June 1925, lot 347; another of 1653 is now Add. MS 80765. He wrote to one of his correspondents: `remember I keep a Kalendar of all that passes' (Add. MS 78298: to `Platona', 20 Dec. 1649). A bookbinder's bill of Gabriel Bedell of 11 June 1662 (in Add. MS 78638 below) includes an `Almanacke bound with pages Extraord[inary]', which indicates the form in which he continued to compile his original entries. After the Restoration Evelyn began to transcribe and expand these, adding passages from published travel guides and from his own memory, including some retrospective comments; consequently, of the volumes described below only Add. MS 78323 after 1684 and Add. MS 78325 actually contain contemporary or near contemporary diary entries; for a detailed account of how this was established, see de Beer's introduction in Diary, I, pp. 44-105. Apart from the almanac volumes already mentioned, two copies of an extract concerning events in 1651 in other collections (of which there is another at beginning of Add. MS 78324 below), and a few missing pages whose location is now conjectural, the manuscripts described below constitute the whole surviving text of Evelyn's diary. For a list of all the diary manuscripts (except the almanac of 1653), see Peter Beal, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, 3 vols (Mansell, 1980-93), II: 1625-1700, Pt 1 (1987), pp. 486-487.

The diary remained unpublished in the hands of Evelyn's descendants for more than a hundred years after his death. William Upcott, who was employed in 1813 on recommendation of the family solicitor, William Bray, to catalogue the Evelyn library, later exaggerated his role in `discovering' the diary, rescuing it and Evelyn's manuscript correspondence from neglect and destruction, and persuading the widow of Sir Frederick Evelyn, 3^rd Bart. to publish it, while allowing Bray to be named as editor (see Upcott's accounts in Diary, I, pp. 53-55 and Add. MS 78583, 5 July 1845). In fact the diary was well known within the family circle and had already been lent to Bray for use in his continuation of Owen Manning's History of Surrey. Upcott was not the first to urge its publication. In 1814 Lady Evelyn requested Bray to select suitable portions of it for this purpose (see Bray's account in the preface to Add. MS 78581 below), and his autograph transcripts, notes and index in Add. MS 78577 below, which confirm his editorial role; although it is clear from his and Lady Evelyn's letters to Upcott (in Add. MS 78583) that she was concerned that he might lack the time to complete it and that Upcott did play a large part in seeing it through the press. The first edition entitled Memoirs Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn appeared in two quarto volumes in 1818, a further quarto edition in 1819 and an octavo edition in 1827. The proofs of both are in Add. MS 78580 A and B. The best edition is now The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. Esmond de Beer, 6 vols., (Oxford, 1955); it is based on all the available diary manuscripts and is extensively annotated, though de Beer did not have access to Evelyn's manuscript correspondence or the remainder of his archive.

Three volumes.