Physical description

Form:

Codex


Support:

Paper of a single stock throughout.

Watermark: horn in shield with IR countermark sometimes visible. Too difficult to see top half of watermark to make an accurate comparison to the watermark sources.


Extent: i + 375 ii pp. [really front pastedown (p.i), unfoliated flyleaf, pp.1-375, p.ii (verso of p.375 is p.ii), iii (back pastedown)]. 192 leaves. 186x146mm
Collation:

4o in 16s: i15 ii20 iii-x16 xi12 xii17


Layout:

Four margins, about half drawn with a ruler. Marginal biblical references in outer margins. Biblical quotations sometimes written twice as large as surrounding text (e.g. p.147). See p.283 re. order of writing the MS. The writing on pp.297 and 375 is tiny as she tries to cram her remaining thoughts in before the occasional meditations, or before the end of the volume.


Hands:

The manuscript is written in Anne Halkett's hand throughout.

Hand A (pp. i, 1-375, ii-iii): italic.


Binding:

Original brown calfskin with double ruling in blind around borders. No decoration along edges of boards. Four ridges at spine, with double ruling in blind above and below each ridge. The library's name and ""MS. 6500"" stamped in gilt at top and bottom of spine.

192x150x26mm


Foliation:

i, 1-375, ii-iii pp. Paginated by Halkett and corrected in pencil. Halkett's pagination is two pages ahead by the end (she also mispaginated 322-340 as 222-240).


Condition:

Binding quite battered and flaking. Worm holes at bottom right corner of all pages, though not much text affected. Holes at top near gutter on pp.287-296; no text affected. Some leaves have been repaired with tape along gutter. There is a pin in pp.35-36 near top gutter.

Provenance

The manuscript remained in the library at Pitfirrane House, seat of the Halkett family, until it was purchased by the National Library of Scotland in 1951-52 (though it was borrowed from Pitfirrane on two occasions).

This manuscript, and the 13 others, were still in the hands of the family in 1870, the date of a note in NLS MS 6412, fol.213 in the correspondence of Admiral Sir Peter Halkett, Bart. (succ. 1837). He lists the 7 volumes which are missing, lists most of the extant volumes as currently with John Gough Nichols (his edition of Anne Halkett's autobiography was published in 1875), and asks at the end of the list if the unbound volumes listed by Cooper in 1701 exist (National Library of Scotland Catalogue of Manuscripts,V, 6).

The National Library of Scotland acquired the Halkett manuscripts in 1951-52.