Mary Albery wrote her name in the book on the 24th November 1856 and penned her first essay four days later. Generally she wrote two pages every seven days or so, and although there is no break in the text, a date is given mainly under the last word on each second page where she left off writing. It is reasonable to assume that a tutor was overseeing her work on a weekly basis as according to the dates the work she undertook places the lessons as usually on a Friday or Sunday. Possibly a homework exercise ready for Monday morning? The bulk of the manuscript is formed of three essays that Mary was set to copy, these include Macaulay on ‘Warren Hastings’, and two chapters from Wharton’s Queens of Society on La Marquise de Maintenon and Madame de Sévigné. The remainder of the manuscript includes much shorter anecdotes, biographies, and concluds with extracts from Martin Farquhar Tupper’s Proverbial Philosophy. A seemingly arbitrary group of texts for Mary to work through, still she dutifully applied herself to the task for two year’s, the last entry dated November 11th 1867 when she would have been eighteen. Mary Albery was born at Midhurst, Sussex in 1848, the daughter of Mary and Edwin Albery, a solicitor in that town who later became a governor of the grammar school there and involved himself in many local organisations and public works. Mary was to marry a cousin, John Lucas, who became a partner with in his father-in-laws practice, Mary apparently lived at Midhurst throughout her life until her death in 1933.