Selections from the Diary of

Elizabeth Horsey Saffery (1762-98)

The manuscript of Elizabeth Saffery's diary can be found in the Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.A.3, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Her diary comprises two small bound volumes with soft covers: vol. 1 begins with an entry for 20 March 1797, then skips to 20 September and continues thereafter until 28 January 1798; vol. 2 from 6 February 1798 to 24 April 1798. Saffery died on 22 May 1798. For a biographical summary of her life, click here. For a more complete biographical account and a fully annotated text of her complete diary, see Timothy Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 8, pp. 399-436. Non-annotated selections below are from pp. 408-19, 426-29, and 434-36.