This is an interactive, digital edition of a Philadelphian woman's commonplace book from the Romantic period. From 1797 to 1821, Sarah Walner Bulkeley collected quotations, poetry, and prose excerpts from her reading and copied them into these pages. By examining the commonplace of an ordinary woman of the Romantic era, this website aims to explore historical practices of reading and interacting with books, and especially the history of women’s reading in the 18th and early 19th century.

The manuscript is held at Kislak Center for Special Collections at the University of Pennsylvania.