What do the workdiaries look like?The workdiaries are most commonly of folded foolscap format, creating pages of approximately A4 size. Though now bound up in volumes, they were evidently kept by Boyle as stitched paper-books or as loosely-tied bundles of papers. They frequently open with headings like 'Philosophical Entrys & Memorials'. A few are smaller, of octavo or duodecimo size (Workdiaries 18, 27, and 33). The earliest are written in Boyle's own handwriting, but from the mid 1650s onwards they are written in the hand of the various amanuenses whom Boyle employed, see handwriting. The self-contained entries within them vary in length from a line to over a page. They are sometimes dated, and they are often endorsed with retrospective comments on their subject matter |
