ABSTRACT
This chapter includes Elizabeth Inchbald's surviving diaries, which record her social contacts and professional activities, itemize her day-to-day expenditure, and chart the development of affairs such as the Napoleonic Wars and the trial of Queen Caroline. Inchbald kept her diary of 1808 in THE LADIES’ OWN MEMORANDUM-BOOK, OR DAILY POCKET JOURNAL, FOR THE YEAR 1808, printed yearly in London by C. Whittingham, Goswell Street, for G. Robinson, Scatcherd and Letterman and W. J. and J. Richardson. The 1808 journal consists of seventy-four leaves (one of which is detached at the beginning; two additional leaves were cut from the book before the title page) and is bound in plain red leather with an embossed double line around the edges. Inchbald began the diary of 1808 at the age of fifty-four when she was living in London. The previous year, she had continued her task of writing prefaces to the 125 plays included in the series entitled The British Theatre.
