Le droit du Seigneur is a comedy written with remarkable speed – in a fortnight, if Voltaire is to be believed (D8933, D8959). Its style and themes echo those of his earlier sentimental comedies, such as Nanine (1749), with which it also shares the decasyllabic verse form.

Manuscript travel journals, 1784-1790, comprising part of a ‘Journal of an 8 month’s (sic) tour on the Continent’, 25 Apr-10 May 1784, describing the final phase of a tour from Sedan to Calais and London which lasted from October 1783 to May 1784, and including an itinerary of the whole voyage through Picardy, Paris, Burgundy, Switzerland and Belgium, and an anecdote concerning Voltaire; a ‘Journal of a tour to the West in the summer 1788’, describing a journey from London through Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall; and an unfinished ‘Journal of a tour into Sussex’, Jul 1790.