Introductioné
Lucy Hutchinson (née Apsley) is best remembered for her biography, or ‘Memoirs’, of her husband, John Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham, who died in 1664 while under arrest for alleged treasonable conspiracy. Some of her relevant autograph papers and versions of this biography still survive (HuL 7-10). She was, besides this, a prolific writer of verse and prose, including substantial works which have only recently been discovered or have attracted the attention of scholars, notably David Norbrook who is now editing a collected edition of her works. Those preserved in manuscripts include a series of elegies relating to her dead husband (*HuL 2); two largely autograph commonplace books (HuL 13-14); a verse translation of Lucretius (*HuL 1); and an unfinished epic poem, Order and Disorder (HuL 3). Of her own autobiography only a fragment is known (*HuL 6), which was last recorded, however, in 1806.
Peter Beal