Instructions to burn, destroy, or keep documents hidden abounded in correspondences of the long eighteenth century. A common cultural practice, the destruction of personal papers denotes a process of selectivity and self-curation, as well as speaking to the negotiations of trust that underpinned epistolary relationships. This paper explores the widespread practice of destruction in the context of the correspondences of scientific figures from 1650-1850. Drawing on several case studies, it will be argued that the destruction of papers in this period provided a means through which their writers could curate their image, navigate societal and intellectual expectations, and test their relationships with their correspondents. From discussions of the destruction of ‘juvenile’ scientific tracts that were deemed unsuitable for publication, through pleas to destroy long and rambling letters that somewhat incoherently jump from one theory to another, to the enclosing of the papers of others marked for destruction after reading to preserve integrity, this paper will explore a range of manuscript sources that reveal the central place that destruction played in shaping the correspondences of early modern scientists.

Dr Zoe Screti is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her project, ‘Burn This: The Destruction of Personal Papers During the European Enlightenment’, explores the intentional destruction of manuscripts during the long eighteenth century and combines digital humanities techniques with more traditional archival research to model and understand archival loss in this period. She was formerly the Astra Foundation Research Fellow in Manuscript Studies at the Voltaire Foundation where she worked on the Catalogue of Manuscripts Relating to Voltaire (CMV). For CMV, Zoe established the data model for the catalogue, identified fields for inclusion, created catalogue entries, and considered ways in which CMV could link to the wider Digital Voltaire project. She continues to contribute to the catalogue alongside her Leverhulme ECF project. Zoe has a BA in History, an MA in Early Modern History, and a PhD in History, all from the University of Birmingham. Her doctoral thesis explored the relationship between religious reform and alchemy in early modern England, questioning what the collation, circulation, and use of alchemical manuscripts can reveal about the ways in which alchemy was shaped by the Reformation.