I feel like I've finally broken a barrier that was holding me back. Thanks, Bev and Deb.

Deena, that is wonderful. Such sensual language.

Thank you, sj!

Wow, Deena. Very evocative.

Can I throw out a question and maybe get some of the experts on the board to save me some research?

The scenario (it's in Matty Groves, third in the Child Ballad series): the main characters discover a mention in the family records of the Lady Susanna (Lady Arnold of the title song, circa 1620's) having kept a journal. It makes sense: she was very isolated, much younger than her doting but extremely busy husband, brutalised by a cousin of her husband's (he's the incubus haunting the house in the novel), who has terrorised her into believing that her husband would believe the cousin ahead of the socially lower status wife, and cast her off. Her family lives nearby (Hampshire) but they're distinctly not in the same social class as Susanna's husband's family (Lord Callowen) and she's ben gently but firmly discouraged from socialising with them much. So she really has no one to turn to.

So they find a mention in the family records, saying that her things have been disposed of after the murder. And one of the things that's mentioned - the crucial thing, setting off a frantic pre-exorcism hunt - is this journal.

So a question:

I am an ignoramus on the years leading up to the English Civil War days. What would said journal have looked like? A bound book, obviously, since they were a wealthy family - but, well, I really don't want to have to go digging. All input gratefully received.

Thanks, Susan.

Deb, you could have it be a book she bound herself, in secrecy, finding or taking the vellum or parchment (or paper?) sheets from her husband's office, looking at bound books and figuring out how it's done, folding the sheets into "books" and stitching them together, deciding whether or not to put a cover on her bound pages, and what to use if so, etc.

Or she could take an account book, again from her husband's office, or the business manager's (steward's?) office, or buying one at the stationer's, if there was such a place, in town. An account book would be more commonplace, less noticeable, but more difficult to hide entirely, and people might wonder why she had one. A book of her own making could be any size, hidden anywhere, but more recognizable for what it is if it was found.

You wouldn't write an ordinary book on vellum or parchment in the 1600s. Paper. And I'm betting it isn't officially a journal, it's officially her housekeeping book -- jelly receipts interspersed with "bought 5 gills of Hungary water" interspersed, as time goes on, with journal entries.

There's a specific name for this sort of housewife's book and I'm blanking on it.

Here's a lovely Webpage on surviving cookery manuscripts that you could steal some recipes from.

[link]

IIRC, even printed books weren't commonly sold bound until sometime in the 19th century. You'd buy the printed sheets, and have your own binding put on them.

Given that, I very seriously doubt that bound blank books were around much before then -- keeping notes on loose paper and binding or tying them together after they were written is what I'd expect.