2024-04-19 06:46
’If this had been begun ten years ago, and faithfully kept!!! - heigho! there are too many things I wish never to have remembered, as it is.’ This is George Gordon Byron, who die… Read More
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The Diary Review Blog
thediaryjunction.blogspot.com
Articles about historical and literary diaries and diarists
2024-04-12 09:33
Happy 70th birthday Jon Krakauer, US author of several best-selling true-story books. I have no idea whether Krakauer is a diarist himself, but in two of his books - one about a young man wh… Read More
2024-04-10 09:48
‘Tide low, big lumbering vessels crowding up the little dock, a juvenile Celt waiting there, perchance in the desperate hope that some one intent on bathing might also appear, and keep… Read More
2024-03-25 13:00
‘The Divine Angler. There was presented to me a Person, Angling upon the Brink of a River, to catch Fish; but his Labour was fruitless. So that he gave off, being hopeless. Then came a… Read More
2024-03-21 09:36
‘Dined with Henry James alone at the Reform Club. He was perfectly wonderful. By far the greatest man I have ever met - and yet amazingly humble and affectionate - absolutely delightfu… Read More
2024-03-06 16:55
‘7 degrees below freezing point. Felled the hazel & ozier underwood in the plantation before the house, & got two small waggon loads of faggots from it.’ This is from the… Read More
2024-02-27 12:01
‘Anthony E[den] and Edward Wood are off to Geneva - and the farce begins again - talk, talk, talk - and all the time the nations are arming - and the Teuton faces the Slav as he did in… Read More
2024-02-26 17:05
’The newspapers are attacking me more furiously than ever, for my speech on the 14th, and I have a swarm of abusive letters. One good lady says: “I am praying for your death; I h… Read More
2024-02-25 18:48
’A wonderful day of LifeVery sunny & fine.Left Fenton with Willie & E. soon after 10.at 11 - Glorious King Olaf a magnificent triumph.’These are a few lines from the diar… Read More
2024-02-20 11:50
Amy Lowell, a colourful and influential personality in American poetry during the first quarter of the 20th century, was born 150 years ago today. Apart from writing her own poetry, she also… Read More
2024-02-18 14:50
‘At last we are off. The last of the cheering crowded boats have turned, the sirens of shore and sea are still, and in the calm hazy gathering dusk on a glassy sea we move on the long… Read More
2024-02-09 12:07
‘I guess I really am a queer fish. When I write poems, as I’ve done at a brisk rate for the past 4 hours, they come to me out of locked rooms - out of nowhere. It is the oddest t… Read More
2024-02-05 13:24
Countess Cowper, Lady of the Bedchamber to Caroline Princess of Wales, the highest ranking lady in Britain at the time, died three centuries ago today. Her much older husband, Earl Cowper, w… Read More
2024-02-04 07:30
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the American ornithologist and painter of birds, Louis Agassiz Fuertes. Although there are no published books of his journals, Cornell Unive… Read More
2024-01-25 15:19
Edvard Munch, one of Norway’s most famous sons, and the painter of one of the world’s most famous paintings, The Scream, died 80 years ago today. His so-called ‘private jou… Read More
2024-01-24 17:08
Andrew Ellicott, one of the most important early surveyors in the United States, was born 270 years ago today. He helped survey borders with Canada and with the Spanish territories, worked o… Read More
2024-01-17 10:42
‘Odd things, like a button drawer. MeanThing, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuousdiscards. Space for knickknacks… Read More
2024-01-06 22:36
‘I must forget how to write. I must unlearn what has been taught me.’ This is John Wieners, an American beat poet born 90 years ago today, writing in his diary aged but 24… Read More
2023-12-28 12:22
‘On way home, at night, an anguish of suffering in the thought that I can never hope to have an intellectual companion at home.’ This is George Gissing, a British novelist, a pur… Read More
2023-12-22 09:00
Beatrix Potter - author and illustrator of the much-loved Peter Rabbit books - died 80 years ago today. As a teenager and young woman, Potter kept a secret diary written in code. This was no… Read More
2023-12-13 11:56
‘The day began with the barber telling me that, as of September 19, we will have to wear a badge bearing the word “Jew,” even six-year-old children. This won’t break… Read More
2023-12-02 13:59
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the death of E. M. Delafield, a British writer much loved for The Diary of a Provincial Lady, first published in 1930, and its sequels. Although classed a… Read More
2023-11-28 09:44
‘The atomic bomb was used yesterday for the first time on the Japs. I must say I feel shocked and ashamed. Nobody knows what the effects of it, indirect or direct, will be on the area… Read More
2023-11-19 20:17
‘I felt more powerfully than ever today what poems people are; not the part of them that speaks, but the mysterious, intricate network of thoughts and feelings which remain unexpressed… Read More
2023-11-16 17:27
‘The Prospect of Constantinople, when ye behold it from the top of the Channel, at the distance of two Miles, is beyond compare, as being to my Eyes, as to all that ever saw it, the mo… Read More
2023-11-14 10:17
‘I consider this days very successful work which has put me on the knot of several new and interesting products which may have a wide application as plastics and varnishes. Have applie… Read More
2023-11-08 17:34
Ivan Bunin, the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, died 70 years ago today. Though admired for his short stories and poems, it was his diaries, written in the afterm… Read More
2023-11-06 11:18
Today marks the 470th anniversary of the birth of Roger Wilbraham, a lawyer by training who held various high posts under Elizabeth I and James 1, and who was very charitable towards h… Read More
2023-10-31 11:56
The great Italian film director, Federico Fellini, died 30 years ago today. He won four Oscars for best foreign language film, more than any other director, and is considered to be one of th… Read More
2023-10-23 07:02
‘For a fortnight JH and I have been trimming the fat from this volume, fat being the truth that endangers. The book still seems bloated, for I’m as fond of my fat as an analysand… Read More
2023-10-16 12:54
‘I walkd by my self after tea finished the French Novel _ then Mr Inchbald and I walkd, he was dull and after we came home we had Words.’ These are the words of Elizabeth Inchbal… Read More
2023-10-15 07:30
‘Great demonstration of the Church of England Sunday Schools. About 15,000 walked in procession. Hugh Birley, Esq., addressed them in the Park.’ This is from the diary of a well… Read More
2023-10-10 10:01
Today marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury and an adviser to Charles I. However, he became so unpopular for his persecution of Puritans that he… Read More
2023-10-07 12:16
’The ice we are amongst is chiefly this years, but fragments of older floes are intermixed and some heavy pieces of berg. A large one is lying at the head of the bay inside of Prince I… Read More
2023-10-06 10:25
‘Remembered to-day something I’d said to F. last summer as we lay on the bed together: I said “You know, you’re one of the few men I’d like to have had a child… Read More
2023-10-02 10:30
‘I feel the power of a lion in me, since I have broken the heavy ban which encircled me for years. I know now only one goal: extreme particular education in natural sciences, a body li… Read More
2023-09-20 14:38
‘For my part, I consider it important above all not to be duped. That’s what I peacefully strive for. I know the deep wretchedness of our generation and the ones that follow, and… Read More
2023-09-16 08:00
The French explorer Nicolas Baudin died on this day 220 years ago. Born in humble circumstances, he rose to captain one of France’s most important scientific and geographical expeditio… Read More
2023-09-13 17:18
‘I have omitted to mention the execution of the Cato Street conspirators [concerning a plot to murder all the British cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool], which to… Read More
2023-09-07 08:00
Samuel Ward, a sixteenth century religious scholar who spent all his working life at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, died 380 years ago today. As with Margaret Hoby who was born one year b… Read More
2023-09-02 08:13
Half a century ago today died the English fantasy writer, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, best known for his novel, The Lord of the Rings. An archive of his papers is kept at the Bodleian Library… Read More
2023-08-20 17:28
Ralph Josselin - an Essex vicar, teacher and farmer - died 340 years ago this month. Though not particularly familiar as a historical name, he is remembered as an important early diarist. In… Read More
2023-08-12 15:28
‘This evening I observed a procession of several hundred people carrying paper lanterns; and, when I asked the reason, I was told that it was in response to a rumor that the geisha hou… Read More
2023-08-07 11:35
Today marks the 170th anniversary of the death of Colonel Peter Hawker. A military man by profession, his main love was hunting, and, somewhat remarkably, he left behind a diary in which he… Read More
2023-07-25 17:03
‘I think some critics are uncomfortable with me because they have never been able to put me into a nice little slot. They haven’t been able to place me. But I’ve long since… Read More
2023-07-19 18:39
Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester and a force for Anglo-Catholocism in the mid-19th century, died 150 years ago today. His detailed diary underpins a three-part biography partly writt… Read More
2023-07-16 10:01
Joshua Reynolds, one of the most important 18th century British painters and a founder of the Royal Academy of Arts, was born three centuries ago today. Although not a diarist, he did keep p… Read More
2023-07-12 10:03
It is 30 years since Dan Eldon - a bright young star of photojournalism - was killed aged only 22 covering events in Somalia that presaged the so-called Battle of Mogadishu later that year… Read More
2023-07-06 11:04
‘The lordes of the counsel sat at Gildhaul in London, where in the presence of a thousand peple they declared to the maire and bretherne their slouthfulnes in suffering unreasonable pr… Read More
2023-07-02 14:06
’The Germans play their game cleverly: treason on all sides. Why is it that in no other people drawn into the war is there so much treason as among the Russians? [. . .] The Germans ha… Read More
2023-06-30 07:00
‘Audience of the King [Edward VII], . . [He] kept me for about twenty minutes, talking about Japan, the Garter mission, and gardens, such as Batsford, La Mortola & Miss Alice Roths… Read More
2023-06-19 15:24
It is 30 years since the death of William Golding, the great British writer, author of Lord of the Flies. A large literary archive containing two decades’ worth of daily diary entries… Read More
2023-06-12 14:23
‘The tombs and graves of people murdered in martyrdom are ever increasing all over the country. Every village and town, every forest abounds with graves looming from a distance as a hi… Read More
2023-06-11 09:54
Some 80 years ago today, Philip Mechanicus, a Dutch journalist who had been arrested and imprisoned in the Westerbork transit camp by the Nazis for being Jewish, was writing eloquently in hi… Read More
2023-05-30 09:34
‘The French people do not seem to think it wrong to cheat or lie, or the least disgraceful to be told they do.’ Such was the view of a precocious 14 year old called Mary Browne w… Read More
2023-05-29 08:23
Seventy years ago today, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa, made the first acknowledged ascent to the peak of Mount Everest. Although they were part of a large British expedition l… Read More
2023-05-23 19:51
Very many happy returns to Joan Collins, 90 years old today. A famous British actress best remembered for her role in Dynasty, she is now considered one of the last surviving stars from the… Read More
2023-05-06 15:14
‘In the afternoon Lt. Wheeler and I came to a rapid where we deemed it advisable to wait for the Picture [a boat]. I climbed the bluff to Old Snuffy [one of the brown dolomite tongues… Read More
2023-05-06 05:30
‘Tokyo. [. . .] There was the odd schoolboy comic moment too, as when a Japanese businessman said “Ra whole of Japan is rookin fowad to your erection.” I said we are hoping… Read More
2023-04-25 09:35
‘We had a tour of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. It is a huge institution, located on fourteen acres of land. Everything here is large scale [. . .] We were shown the stores, set inst… Read More
2023-04-15 08:30
Today marks the 180th anniversary of the birth of Henry James, one of the US’s finest writers, and a major figure in 19th century literary realism. He was not a diarist as such, but jo… Read More
2023-04-13 14:54
‘Before we knew what was happening, the skies were full of German planes which had apparently sprung from nowhere. There seemed to be hundreds of them diving, zooming, and criss-crossi… Read More
2023-04-11 13:23
‘Some sun though hazy, to Devoran - did awkward drawing of boats and town. Rushed back to Tresilian & did sketch from car.’ This is the painter and illustrator, John Nash - b… Read More
2023-04-06 16:09
Idris Davies, a Welsh poet best remembered for The Bells of Rhymney, a ballad set to music by Pete Seeger, died 70 years ago today. Diaries of his, archived at the National Library of Wales… Read More
2023-04-04 18:00
‘Decided to spend the day photographing. Saddled pony and started for the mountain taking camera and plate changing box with a dozen plates and during the forenoon made eight exposures… Read More
2023-04-04 06:00
‘500 Jews stood on parade for execution by shooting . . . lined up ready to be shot . . . I don’t much care for shooting defenseless people - even if they are only Jews. I prefer… Read More
2023-03-28 09:30
In the moon’s clear light all mundane desiresare but a path of dreamsSo wrote the great poet Saiokuken Sōchō in medieval Japan, half a millennium ago. The verse comes from a… Read More
2023-03-26 13:38
Noël Coward, one of the greatest international show business personalities of the 20th century, died half a century ago today. His published diaries give a marvellously glittering sense… Read More
2023-03-25 14:52
‘All my associations here are bad, and I can hardly shake them off. All the old feelings I have been trying to get rid of, seem revived: particularly vanity and wandering of mind.&rsqu&hell…Read More
2023-03-09 16:58
‘Roger Donald called from Little, Brown to say that he would like to negotiate a two-book deal. To celebrate, I bought a denim shirt, and thought it amazing how quickly one’s lif… Read More
2023-03-07 09:00
John Evelyn Denison, Viscount Ossington, died a century and a half ago today. He was an unremarkable politician except for the fact that he held the office of Speaker in the House of Commons… Read More
2023-03-03 07:00
‘I flung my whole soul into every word I uttered, acting my very best and exciting the audience to a sympathy even with the glowing words of fiction, whilst these dreadful deeds of rea… Read More
2023-02-23 08:43
It’s Samuel Pepys’s birthday, his 390th. For a decade or so in the early part of his career - which would see him become Chief Secretary to the Admiralty - he kept a diary so bri… Read More
2023-02-21 10:17
‘Only you, my diary, know that it is here I show my fears, weaknesses, my complaints, my disillusions. I feel I cannot be weak outside because others depend on me. I rest my head here… Read More
2023-02-11 15:55
Shimazu Yoshihisa, one of the ten most famous Samurai warriors in history, was born 490 years ago today. He went far towards uniting all the clans on the island of Kyūshū but was e… Read More
2023-02-06 08:57
Piero Manzoni, an Italian avant-garde artist famous for canning his own excrement, died 60 years ago today, still only 30 years old. Though not a diarist by nature, he left behind one year-l… Read More
2023-01-29 12:10
‘John Morgan with a large body of cavalry said to be at Glasgow & marching on Lex[ington] expected tonight. The whole town is in a stir in consequence.’ This is from the Civi… Read More
2023-01-28 11:50
‘I dined this day with Capt. Law, the principal engineer, whom in the morning I made prisoner, but in a few hours I was, in my turn, made prisoner. Capt. Law has treated me with great… Read More
2023-01-26 15:06
Edward Jenner, sometimes referred to as the father of immunology, died 200 years ago today. Though but a family doctor and surgeon, he managed to pioneer the use of cowpox as a vaccine again… Read More
2023-01-18 11:25
Happy sixtieth birthday Alexandra (Sasha) Patrusha Mina Swire, political Tory wife par excellence. She rocketed into the public eye a couple of years ago on publishing her private diary, ina… Read More
2023-01-15 20:37
James Madison DeWolf, a surgeon with the US army regiment that fought and lost the famous Battle of the Little Big Horn, was born 180 years ago today. He is only remembered today because he… Read More
2023-01-10 11:47
Albert Jacka, the famous Australian war hero, was born 130 years ago today. His eventful life, cut very short by the consequences of soldiering in the First World War, has been immortalised… Read More
2023-01-06 17:17
’[Mr K] says that if he dies before the election I’m to go round his MPs - because they’ll say it was his own fault he worked too hard - and tell them it wasn’t all h… Read More
2023-01-05 19:23
‘I decided that the Brussels years were likely to be a sharply isolated segment of my life, and that I might mark them by attempting this new exercise.’ This is the highly regard… Read More
2023-01-03 09:25
Joe Orton could have been celebrating his 90th birthday today had he not been murdered by his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, in 1967! For a brief period in the mid-1960s, before his death, Orton… Read More
2022-12-29 11:29
Lili Elbe, a Danish painter and famously a transgender woman, was born 140 years ago today. She wrote an autobiographical memoir - Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex - wh… Read More
2022-12-17 16:48
‘I keepe a dayere . . . for the expense of my time, as I doe for that money I spend . . .’ This is Bullen Reymes - a courtier, diplomat and politician who died 350 years ago toda… Read More
2022-12-13 16:42
‘Late at night. Just back to the flat I’m staying in from reading the play at the [Glasgow] Citizens. It was sweet, sweet, sweet. A marvellous theatre. On its stage you feel like… Read More
2022-12-12 15:14
The undistinguished British diplomat and courtier, Henry Greville, died 150 years ago today. Like his more famous brother, Charles, he kept a diary for most of his life, and this was publish… Read More
2022-12-11 16:54
Maila Nurmi - considered by her biographer niece to be the ‘architect of the Goth phenomenon’ - was born a century ago today. For a few years, in the 1950s, her character Vampira… Read More
2022-12-07 10:57
Martín Sarmiento, a much-admired Spanish scholar and monk, died all of 250 years ago today. He wrote on a wide variety of subjects, but he is mostly remembered for his book Viaje a Ga… Read More
2022-12-06 09:55
‘Suddenly, in the midst of all the people who crowded around me or spoke to me, I felt as if there were a dead chicken in my chest.’ This is Peter Handke - avant-garde writer and… Read More
2022-12-05 09:22
’Last evening, when the rain was over and the moonlight tempted every one on deck, we had a long conversation with our pleasant travelling companion, Mr. Sinimbu, senator from the prov… Read More
2022-12-01 16:51
The Duchess of Argyll, a British socialite born 110 years ago today, troubles the history books little other than for the way her upper class promiscuity was given such public exposure. As a… Read More
2022-11-29 14:19
‘I ran in the wind and played be a horse, and had a lovely time in the woods with Anna and Lizzie. We were fairies, and made gowns and paper wings. I “flied” the highest of… Read More
2022-11-27 11:59
Eighty years ago today, Mary, youngest daughter of Winston Churchill, went to a party hosted by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. Expressions of pleasure and nervousne… Read More
2022-11-22 07:00
It is four centuries to the day since the death of John Manningham, a lawyer at Middle Temple. There was nothing much remarkable about his life, but he is remembered thanks to a diary he kep… Read More
2022-11-20 20:56
‘Am listless and sleepy, as I have never been before. I sleep little at nights: before me I always see the ruin of Italy, . .’ This is from the diaries of the Italian writer and… Read More
2022-11-11 15:48
‘We obeyed and stood at the walls for forty minutes. Anti-aircraft guns were firing somewhere in the distance. After the lights out, the performance continued, albeit at an accelerated… Read More
2022-11-03 14:21
Heinrich Witt, a Danish merchant and financier who lived in Peru, died 130 years ago today. He is remembered for a diary he kept for much of his life. This was published in 10 volumes by Bri… Read More
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