John Evelyn

John Evelyn is principally remembered for his extensive Diary — the most celebrated and most historically informative English diary of the seventeenth century after for that of his friend Samuel Pepys — a journal which, however, remained virtually unknown until the selective edition by Bray and Upcott appeared in 1818. More recently, Evelyn has been celebrated, largely through Keynes's bibliography, as a great bibliophile and some attention has begun to be paid to his wide-ranging original writings. In his lifetime Evelyn published some thirty-two books (including translations from several languages) on topics as diverse as the cultivation of fruit trees and the Jansenist controversies, as well as making occasional contributions to the work of others. His very numerous unpublished writings include poems and plays, as well as essays, notes and unfinished literary fragments. In addition, he conducted a voluminous correspondence and held various offices of state which resulted in the production of even more documentary material.

The Christ Church Evelyn Collection

The bulk of Evelyn's extant papers, including most of his Diary (EvJ 215-217), was preserved from 1949 to 1995 as the Evelyn Collection at Christ Church, Oxford. This collection, then comprising 605 numbered manuscripts or manuscript volumes, in addition to a multitude of unnumbered papers of differing sizes, was probably the greater part of the archive that Evelyn left at his death in Wotton House, Surrey. It ranged from extensive autograph writings to miscellaneous estate and family papers, some in other hands, including many manuscripts of others' composition which Evelyn simply owned. Besides suffering some damage through the effect of damp in the cellars at Wotton, where the papers were put for safe keeping (Keynes, p. 22), the archive is not intact since an unspecified, though probably quite limited, number of manuscripts appear to have disappeared over the years through neglect or dispersal. When the antiquary William Upcott (1779-1845) visited the eccentric Lady Evelyn (d.1817) in 1813 — at which time, incidentally, he discovered the Diary — he found (so he claimed) that she had been allowing her household to cut up some of the papers for dress patterns and he did not scruple to accept from her (out of sixteen trunks of such documents) packets and basketsful of papers when she learned that he was interested in ‘old Letters’ and ‘hand writings’ (Keynes, p. 29; de Beer, I, 53-4; and an account by Upcott written 15 June 1833 wassold at Sotheby's, 10 July 1986, lot 54, to Quaritch). Certainly, whatever his method of acquiring them, Upcott had many of Evelyn's papers and books among his own collections afterwards. A number appear in the privately-printed catalogue of Original Letters, Manuscripts, and State Papers, Collected by William Upcott (1836), and sixty-three lots of books and manuscripts of Evelyn are listed in the catalogues of the posthumous sale of Upcott's collections conducted by Sotheby's, in the Evans sale rooms on New Bond Street, on 15-19, 22-4 and (pictures) 25-7 June 1846. Many of these lots were actually bought back for the Evelyn family: see the summary of the sale in the Gentleman's Magazine, 26, ii (1846), 491-6. This brief account of dispersal also excludes considerations of those manuscripts which Evelyn sent to the printer (who on at least one occasion lost his original manuscript before it was used: see Keynes, p. 106), as well as those he may have disposed of during his lifetime. In a letter to Pepys on 6 December 1681, for instance, he refers to one such lost discourse ‘wherein I did attempt to shew how far a gentleman might become very knowing, and to good purpose, by the onely assistance of the modern languages’ (Keynes, pp. 21-2).

The British Library

The entire Evelyn Collection deposited at Christ Church was sold by the Evelyn family to the British Library in 1995. It now comprises 526 manuscript volumes (Add. MSS 78168-78693). Reassembled and usually rebound for conservation purposes, the papers have been catalogued by volume, principally by Frances Harris, and this is available online on the British Library's website.

Given the extent and availability of this cataloguing, most of the entries for Evelyn originally supplied in IELM, II.i (1987) are now outdated. For present purposes, few changes or additions to the entries are made, but most of them can now be supplied with their new British Library call numbers. A small number of items, mainly brief notes and the like, have not yet been identified, but will certainly be somewhere among the BL collection and will no doubt be found in due course. These items are listed below in a repository category of Christ Church, Oxford, Evelyn Collection, as ‘Untraced Evelyn Papers formerly at Christ Church, Oxford’.

In what remains only a selective and provisional guide to Evelyn's extant writings, the entries below are arranged in the following categories. Known manuscripts of works published in Evelyn's lifetime are recorded in the first part of the Prose section (EvJ 11-25), while separate categories are given to his Diaries (EvJ 215-23) and to a small corpus of Verse (EvJ 1-10) and Dramatic Works (EvJ 212-214) among his unpublished papers. The remainder of his unpublished writings, which occupy the majority of the entries, as well as those works in manuscript that were published posthumously, are listed below as ‘Miscellaneous Remains’ in the second part of the Prose section (EvJ 26-211) with titles or convenient subject headings supplied where necessary. These papers, which include commonplace books and devotional compilations (the latter usually written for Margaret Blagge [Mrs Godolphin]), comprise writings on scholarly, philosophical, historical, antiquarian, heraldic, grammatical, theological, economic, musical, horticultural, autobiographical and personal domestic subjects. They also include some of Evelyn's scientific writings — not least the remains of the unfinished scientific project on which he worked for some years, his Elysium Britannicum (EvJ 74-79) — these being a reminder of Evelyn's role as one of the earliest members of the Royal Society, to which he contributed original papers on such subjects as printing (EvJ 55-56) and paper-making (EvJ 86-90).

The majority of Evelyn's miscellaneous papers recorded below are autograph, but some contemporary copies have been given entries, including manuscripts in the neat calligraphic hand of Richard Hoare who, after 12 March 1648/9, was employed for many years as Evelyn's amanuensis (he was ultimately dismissed as unsatisfactory, it seems, and a number of his transcripts bear Evelyn's remarks declaring how full of errors they are). Many scores of other manuscripts in the Evelyn Collection, not recorded here, are written for the most part in other hands and represent collections of both Evelyn and his family rather than original compositions by him. These manuscripts, many of which contain Evelyn's autograph inscription and motto, include a multitude of historical and theological tracts, papers relating to naval matters, an important original correspondence between Charles I and Sir Edward Nicholas [see Bray, II, part ii], two commonplace books of Evelyn's cousin the dramatist Sir Samuel Tuke, and compilations of papers by other members of Evelyn's family, including notably his father-in-law Sir Richard Browne.

Presentation Volumes Inscribed by Evelyn

Many exempla of his own printed works, suitably inscribed, were presented by Evelyn to friends and influential figures, while in other exempla still he sometimes made autograph corrections to the text. In instances where such corrections and revisions virtually amount to projected new editions, separate entries are given below (whether locations are currently known or not: see *EvJ 1, *EvJ 12, *EvJ 21, *EvJ 25). Many other volumes containing autograph inscriptions, corrections or notes (the majority recorded in Keynes), but which have not been given separate entries, include the following:

Letters

Many other examples of Evelyn's hand survive in the form of personal letters. Evelyn conducted a voluminous correspondence over the course of his long life and several hundred letters by him are still preserved, many in the originals, many others in retained drafts or in copies in his letterbooks. These are in addition to an indeterminate number of letters sent to him by his many correspondents. Among the latter were some of the most distinguished writers and public figures of his time, including Samuel Pepys, to whom a very large number of the surviving letters are addressed. The main collection of Evelyn's correspondence is to be found in the autograph letterbooks (containing over 380 letters from 1679 to 1698) in the Evelyn Papers (British Library Add. MSS 78298, 78399, and 78579). A further volume, containing Evelyn's copies of select letters to particularly important persons from c.1644 to 1679 (including, inter alia, Cowley, Davenant, Waller, Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne) is in the private ownership of Lord Camoys, of Stonor Park (a negative microfilm, made in 1969, is in the Bodleian, MS Film 743). Over 1,430 letters sent to Evelyn by correspondents are also among the Evelyn Papers in the British Library, as well as in Add. MSS 15857-15858, 15948-15949, passim).

Other repositories possessing letters by Evelyn include the following:

Many of Evelyn's letters are in private collections (recorded, for instance, in various HMC reports) or have appeared in sale catalogues in past centuries. Sale catalogues containing facsimile illustrations of letters by Evelyn include, inter alia: Samuel J. Davey's sale catalogue No. 31 (London, 1889), frontispiece. Maggs's sale catalogues No. 570 (1932), item 1603; No. 605 (1935), item 89; No. 634 (1936), item 655; and elsewhere. Sotheby's, 16 March 1937, lot 488; 23 July 1987, lot 248; and 24 July 1995, lot 487; Christie's, 14 June 1979 (Houghton sale, Part I), lots 203-5, and 11 June 1980 (Part II), lot 363. Christie's, New York, 6 February 1981 (Prescott sale), lot 107.

Other facsimile examples of letters by Evelyn may be found in Bray, I and II, frontispiece; Miscellaneous Writings, frontispiece; Lawrence B. Phillips, The Autographic Album (London, 1866), p. 19; Catalogue of the Collection of …Alfred Morrison, II (1885), 104-5; Garnett & Gosse (1903), III, 117; Seven Letters of John Evelyn, written between the years 1665 & 1703, [ed. Frances Evelyn Rowley Heygate] (privately printed, Oxford, 1914), pp. 6-7; British Literary Autographs, Series I, ed. Verlyn Klinkenbord et al. (New York, 1981), No. 49; A.M. Broadley, Chats on Autographs (London, 1910), p. 200; and Clara Marburg, Mr. Pepys and Mr. Evelyn (Philadelphia & London, 1935), after p. 8.

There is, understandably, no complete edition of Evelyn's letters, but, in addition to works already mentioned (particularly Bray), various texts have appeared in publications including the following: Robert Boyle, Works, [ed. T. Birch] (London, 1744), V, 397-403; Thomas Birch, History of the Royal Society of London (London, 1756), I, 13-15; Gentleman's Magazine, 67.i (1797), 218-19; William Belve, Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books (London, 1807-12), II, 430-1; London Magazine, 10 (1824), 589-92; Richard Bentley, Correspondence (London, 1842); J. E. Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, II (Oxford, 1908), pp. 310-29; O. F. Morshead, ‘New Light on Pepys’, The Times (18 February 1927); Clara Marburg, Mr Pepys and Mr Evelyn (Philadelphia & London, 1935), Appendix; E. V. Unger and W. A. Jackson, The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library: English Literature, 1475-1700, 3 vols (New York, 1940), III, 1210-32; and Particular Friends: The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, ed. Guy de Bédoyère (Woodbridge, 1997). Some of Evelyn's letters are also printed in editions of his Diary.

Evelyn's Library

No less widely dispersed than his letters is Evelyn's library, which was plainly the predominant enthusiasm of his life. His importance as a bibliophile is now well established. Among much else, he published a translation of the Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque by Gabriel Naudé, successively librarian of Cardinals di Bagni, Barberini, Richelieu and Mazarin and of Queen Christina of Sweden (Paris, 1627) — viz. Instructions concerning Erecting of a Library (London, 1661) — and he drew up a plan for the library of the Royal Society (*EvJ 46, *EvJ 53). He observed: ‘I ever look upon a Library with the reverence of a temple’ (Keynes, p. 6). Besides visiting many of the finest European libraries of his day, he built up over the years a highly selective private library of at least 5,000 volumes. ‘He annotated his books profusely in the margin, and showed an almost modern passion for association copies’ (Keynes, p. 9). He generally entered in them a record of his purchase, his pressmark and his motto (‘Omnia Explorate, Meliora Retinete’; i.e. ‘Proove All things, Retaine the Best’: Keynes, p. 12); and he had most of his books bound in his own, sometimes elaborately tooled, bindings (see the discussion and illustrations in Keynes, pp. 24-8). Much is known about his library from several extant manuscript catalogues and other booklists and notes by him (EvJ 34-54), as well as a number of later family library catalogues relating to Wotton now in the British Library. Three catalogues of Evelyn's library — which may correspond with certain of the extant catalogues — were sold in the Upcott sale in 1846 as lots 60-2 (see Keynes, p. 13).

Evelyn himself sold more than 1,500 books when he moved to Wotton towards the end of his life. However, a goodly portion of these was evidently books inherited from his son, John, who died in 1699. Evelyn also disposed of a few books at an earlier date when, as a student, he presented eight theological volumes to Balliol College, Oxford, where they still remain (Keynes, p. 4). Like various of his papers, a number of his books later fell into the hands of William Upcott and appeared in the Upcott sale on 15-19 June 1846. They included works by Elias Ashmole, St Augustine, J. La Bona, G. Botero, Richard Corbett, B. Contino, G. B. Olevano, M. Parker, R. Plot, F. Mauriceau, a Euchiridion legum (1673), Instructions pour l'histoire (1677), Psalms of David (1630 and 1668), Form of a Prayer for Ireland (1693), and other miscellaneous tracts. Some other books separated from the main library have occasionally resurfaced in booksellers' catalogues over the years or are now housed in various public and private collections. The great bulk of Evelyn's library, however, remained with the Evelyn family and was later accommodated, like the Evelyn archive, at Christ Church. They included notably The Book of Common Prayer (London, 1638) which, according to Evelyn's inscription, is the ‘Booke which Charles the first M. B. did use vpon the Scaffold xxx Jan: 1649 being the Day of his glorious Martyrdom’. Detached and inscribed title-pages from some of Evelyn's books include examples in the Bodleian (MS Montagu d. 12, f. 315r); British Library (Add. MS 15948, f. 4*r; Add. MS 70949, f. 17r [formerly Loan MS 60/2, item 3 (2)]); Cambridge University Library, Sir Geoffrey Keynes Library (Bibliotheca Bibliographici No. 2084, and Huntington (HM 42760). With these exceptions, the greater part of the Evelyn library at Christ Church was ultimately dispersed in the series of great Evelyn sales at Christie's on 22-23 June, 30 November and 1 December 1977 and 15-16 March, 12-13 July and 8 November 1978.

The single greatest buyer at the Evelyn sales was the British Library, which acquired approximately 340 of the lots, now classified in a special ‘Eve.’ series. These books include such notable items as Evelyn's copiously annotated set of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1665-1704 (Eve.a.149) and his annotated exempla of works by, among others, Lancelot Andrewes (Eve.b.26 and 50), Robert Boyle (Eve.a.84), Dr Edward Browne (Eve.b.44), Sir Thomas Browne (Eve.a.166 and b.12), Abraham Cowley (Eve.b.28), Thomas Hobbes (Evea.14 and b.38), Richard Hooker (Eve.b.13), Sir Walter Ralegh (Eve.b.36), Elkanah Settle (Eve.b.7), Jeremy Taylor (Eve.a.55-56 and b.40 and b.55), and a volume of Augustan History once owned by Ben Jonson (Eve.c.3). Some other present locations of Evelyn's books include the following:

Among the many auction and booksellers' catalogues that have included books from Evelyn's library are:

For surveys and discussions of Evelyn's library and its formation and catalogues, see, inter alia, Keynes (1968); John Bidwell, ‘Book-Sale Catalogues from the Evelyn Library, 1682-92’, in Fine Books and Book Collecting, ed. Christopher de Hamel and Richard A. Linenthal (Leamington Spa, 1981), pp. 62-4, with a facsimile; G. de la Bédoyère, ‘John Evelyn's Library Catalogue’, The Book Collector, 43 (1994), 529-48, including facsimile examples; and articles by Nicolas Barker, Michael Hunter, and others (with facsimile examples and including a checklist of Evelyn's books in the British Library) in John Evelyn in the British Library (London, 1995 [first published in The Book Collector, 44/2 (Summer 1995), pp. 147-238)]; and Mirjam Foot, ‘John Evelyn's Bookbindings’, and Giles Mandelbrote, ‘John Evelyn and his Books’, both, with numerous facsimile examples, in John Evelyn and his Milieu, ed. Frances Harris and Michael Hunter (London, 2003), pp. 61-70 and 71-94 respectively.

Various inscriptions and annotated pages in books from Evelyn's library are illustrated in the Christie's sale catalogues, in Keynes (pp. 10-11), and elsewhere.

Miscellaneous Documents

Among other items that have not been given separate entries here are Evelyn's autograph notes added to two manuscript works by John Aubrey in the Bodleian: one ‘The Naturall Historie of Wiltshire, 1685’ (MSS Aubrey 1, 2), where Aubrey records (MS 1, f. 3v) that he has ‘runne them all over againe with Inke’; the other his ‘Monumenta Britannica’ of 1665-93 (MSS Top. gen. c. 24, 25), of which there is a copy in the British Library (Add. MS 78659). Original contributions by Evelyn to Bishop Gibson's edition of Camden's Britannia (London, 1695) are among Gibson's collections in the Bodleian (MSS Dep. c. 225-6).

Other domestic and official papers partly written, signed or endorsed by Evelyn include various documents in the British Library (Add. MS 20731, ff. 2r-5v; Add. MS 70949, ff. 20r-2r (formerly Loan MS 60/2, item 3 (4)); Clark Library, Los Angeles (E935Z D311 1693 Bound; fE 935L C697); Harvard (bMS Eng 991; MSS Eng 992.3, Eng 992.4; and Eng 1178); Magdalene College, Cambridge, Pepys Library (287, pp. 549-50); and National Archives, Kew (SP 29/199/3; SP 29/210/47; SP 29/254/119; SP 29/279/100A; and SP 29/311/13).

Letters concerning the publication of Evelyn's ‘Memoirs’ in 1818 are in the British Library (Add. MS 15951). Transcripts of manuscripts used for de Beer's edition of the Diary in 1955 are in the Bodleian (MSS Eng. misc. c. 335-7).

Peter Beal