By the generosity of the author This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., the WHOLE of this work is available here to the World Wide Web! There are TWO versions on the website.

1. The COMPLETE version is in PDF format and contains the letters with the author's explanatory text and illustrations. As the whole work is some 600 pages long it has been split into four separate PDF files.

2. A SELECTION in HTML format from the letters with Bridget Clarke's footnotes but no other background information or images. This Selection is intended as an apetiser containing the chef's recommendations. Each letter is in a separate, linked HTML page. Anyone looking at the HTML version who wants further information should look at the original PDF source for enlightenment.

N.B. There is a slight discrepancy between the PDF and HTML versions. I have, with the author's approval, taken a liberty with the dates in the HTML version. At the time the letters were written the convention was that the year did not change till March 25th. Even so, things were not that simple.

“ ... the day in the year that the new year starts is 25th March - you will see that on March 2nd it is 1667 and March 31 1668. It wasn't until we changed the calendar to match Europe in late 18C that our financial year moved to 5 April - when they said "give us back our eleven days" because everything altered. The awful thing is that when Locke writes to them from Holland he is using the European calendar which confuses things still more and some of his letters have two dates. I think I always chose the English version to avoid a muddle. By the end of the letters even the Clarkes seem to be going a bit weird as they say Happy New Year in January even though they don't date the letters with a new year until end of March!”

Thus, for example, the day after 31 December 1668 was not 1st January 1669 but 1st January 1668. 1668 did not become 1669 in 1668 until March 25th! In the HTML version [but NOT the PDF version] the dates have been chaged to conform with modern practice.

Once again our thanks to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for allowing us to use her work.