ABSTRACT
Elizabeth Inchbald kept her diary of 1788 (designated Folger M. a. 153) in THE LADIES’ Own Memorandum-Book: OR, DAILY POCKET JOURNAL, For the YEAR 1788, published yearly in London by G. G. J. and J. Robinson, No. 25, Paternoster Row, and S. Hodgson, Newcastle. The cost of the book was one shilling. The title page describes the journal as being ‘Designed as a Methodical REGISTER of all the Transactions of Business, as well as Amusement’, and it is announced as being written ‘By a LADY’. The 1788 journal consists of eighty-two unnumbered leaves (two more of which were cut out at the beginning of the book), and the book is bound in a green leather cover with a simple gold filigree double-helix design impressed around the edges of the leather. The front and back covers are pockets (now empty), with an accordion-style opening for the front pocket and with patterns on the interior of the pockets. A flap attached to the front cover wraps around the outside edge of the pages and covers about a third of the back cover. The interior edge of the flap also has the filigree design. One metal clasp is attached to the flap, but the metal portion (which was oval) to which the clasp attached on the back cover has been lost. The pocketbook measures roughly 12.2 cm in length by 8.4 cm in width by 1.5 cm in thickness. This pocketbook (as of 2007) is in relatively good condition. The year 1788 was written on the front cover but is now barely visible in the leather, as is the numeral 19, presumably indicating the volume number.
