Other People's Lives: The Diaries of Elizabeth Inchbald

"The Muse" herself

I spent last week in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s reading room, doing some research on eighteenth-century actress/playwright/novelist Elizabeth Inchbald, known to her friends as “The Muse.”

Although I discussed her first novel A Simple Story in my dissertation, I had not done a lot of biographical research on Inchbald herself, so my trip to the Folger was enlightening. The Folger holds nearly all of Inchbald’s papers, including her pocketbook diaries, letters, and the many volumes of plays that she wrote remarks for, which established her as one of the first, if not the first female theater critic.

Lucky for me, all of Inchbald’s diaries have been transcribed by Ben P. Roberson and were published by Pickering and Chatto in 2007. I say that is lucky, because Inchbald’s handwriting is atrocious and her diaries were actually just datebooks that she used to keep track of expenditures and write down cryptic notes for herself.

A typical entry reads like this one from Monday, 3 June 1780:

My Cousin here Packing my great Box, she dined and drank tea with me and went with me to the House_Playd in Beggars opera at the hay Market. came home before the Pantomine with Mr. and Mrs. Edwin_Looked beautifully_Mr. Colman told me of some parts_was very happy.

One of her pocketbook diaries.
Photo by Ula Klein courtesy of
the Folger Shakespeare Library.

All of these notes would be squeezed into a tiny box approximately an inch high and three inches wide (see below). Although I used the printed version of her diary for my research, I did get my hands on the actual diaries while I was at the Folger. I’m glad I did, too, because the printed version doesn’t quite give you an idea of what these little pocketbooks looked like (<<<).

In the introduction to the diary, Roberson explains that Inchbald’s handwriting was quite messy, she often diluted her ink to save money, and she was indifferent to issues of capitalization and punctuation. It’s one thing to read those facts, and quite another to page (carefully!) through the diary yourself and admire Inchbald’s cramped handwriting and the life it reflects (and to reflect on the monumental achievement of Roberson as the transcriber of these diaries!).

A small fragment of the diary where Inchbald mentions her role as Bellario in the play Philaster.
It was the first role she played in London, and it was a travesty role (she was dressed "en homme").
Photo by Ula Klein by courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Although I try not to treat the objects left behind by historical persons like saints' relics, it’s hard not to feel a thrill when you hold in your hands the little diary, 200+ years old, that this women from the past used to record her thoughts, feelings, meetings and even the weather. There is something fascinating about seeing how fastidious Inchbald was about recording the weather: “a fine day”; “a Wetesh day”; “a fine but Windy day,” etc. Nearly every day has a record of the weather.

Similarly, nearly every day has a record of how she felt (whether well or poorly or ill) and what she played or saw at the theater that day. Her journal is not just useful for those who would like to study her and her life; it is a brilliant, if undetailed, record of the London theater world of the late eighteenth century.

Of course, the diary is also a wonderful testament to Inchbald’s perseverance as a playwright and writer. The diaries from 1780 and 1781 often include mentions of her writing or working on specific plays. Unfortunately the diary from 1791, the year that A Simple Story was published, does not exist—or at least we don’t have it in a library. It was, however, fascinating to see her mention working on the first half of the novel in the fall of 1780.

I also quite enjoyed the fact that, it seems, it took Inchbald a decade to get through Richardson’s Clarissa(!). She mentions Sunday, March 19, 1780 that she “Read some of Clarissa Harlow in Bed.” It is not until Saturday, June 15, 1793, however, that she records in her diary, “finished reading Clarissa Harlowe.” 

Somehow, that is heartening.