III. Correspondence
The first 100 of the extant letters—they span the period December 1683 to February 1700, and their annotation is supplemented with six appendices that present archival and other material—show us a young Shaftesbury growing into the role of paterfamilias and, at the same time, immersing himself in the world of local, national, colonial, and party politics. Parallel to that, we see him deep in study, absorbed in the literature and thought that was to shape his later life and works; it is here that we find the most definitive and personally closest period (1689 to 1694) in his relations with John Locke. This early correspondence also illuminates his early involvement in various social and intellectual, public and less publicised networks of the day.
