Hoby, Margaret ___ 1570-1633 ___ British ___ n/a

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
There is very little biographical information about Lady Margaret readily available on the internet, even though she is considered (by Ponsonby) to be the earliest known British woman diarist. She was the only daughter of a wealthy landowner. She married three times, first to Walter Devereux, brother of Robert, Earl of Essex (favourite of Elizabeth I), then to Thomas Sidney, brother of the poet, Sir Philip Sidney, and finally to Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - After private prayers

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1599-1605 ___ domestic religious society health

WEB TEXT LINKS
one extract
a bit about
a lot about

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
British Library, Manuscripts Collection

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby 1599-1605
More English Diaries
 

October 2005, July 2008, December 2010, April 2013
Please email if you have any corrections, additions or comments, or if you've found the site useful. Thank you.

IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.