Rough Draft:Retrospection

  • This material is held at
  • Reference
      GB 133 Eng MS 643
  • Dates of Creation
      n.d. [c 1800]
  • Name of Creator
  • Language of Material
      English
  • Physical Description
      vol. 1: 245 x 203 mm; vols 2-5: 316 x 205 mm. 5 notebooks: vol. 1: 6 folios; vol. 2: 96 folios (+ 2 blank); vol. 3: 81 folios; vol. 4: 42 folios; vol. 5: 59 folios;

Scope and Content

A box containing:

  • Vol. 1: a rough draft of the preface to HLP's Retrospection: or a Review of the most striking and important events, characters, situations, and their consequences, which the last eighteen hundred years have presented to the view of Mankind;
  • Vols 2-5: 4 notebooks with drafts, in HLP's hand, of sections of the same work.

Retrospection was intended to be a review of the century in anecdotal format, but was widely misinterpreted and condemned as incomplete and casual history. It has since been read as a feminist history which shows changes in manners and mores as they affected women.

See also English MSS 644-645  below.