Introduction
The money-lender Joyce Jefferies left behind, evidently in her own handwriting, a revealing financial account book (*JeJ 1), one that is a rare exception to the pious autobiographical diaries and memoranda usually associated with women in this period. Although of precious little literary, rather than historical, value, it is a rare, possibly unique, early record of the professional scrivening activities of a woman, other contemporary examples of women's accountancy being generally devoted to domestic household accounts.
Peter Beal