Review: A Brief History of Diaries: From Pepys to Blogs – Alexandra Johnson

Hesperus Press can be relied on to produce interesting high-quality books and their Brief History series is no exception.  There are four books in the series so far – Biographies, Fables and Encyclopaedias and the one reviewed here, A Brief History of Diaries, which I chose because of its relevance to an online writer like myself – after all, what is a book blog other than an reading diary?

The author, Alexandra Johnson is an acknowledged authority on diary keeping having published other books on the subject and teaching non-fiction at a couple of American Universities including Harvard.

She begins her book by pointing out that “the instinct to record daily life and thoughts is as ancient as handwriting” and “some forms of diaries survive in cuneiform”.  But interestingly enough, she believes that “modern diary keeping owes it origins to the fifteenth century culture of accounting, when diary-like accounting books inventoried every aspect of public and private life”.  The earliest diary I have on my shelves is The Book of Margery Kempe which records the life and times of a 14th century English woman from Kings Lynn in Norfolk.  While autobiographical in form it is clearly based on detailed diaries which describe her pilgrimages and business dealings.

Before long we find ourselves reading about Samuel Pepys, perhaps the greatest diarist of all times, having written one and half million words between 1660 and 1669 and leaving a hugely detailed account of daily life in London and covering the Great Fire of London and the 1665 Plague.  We move through overview of the diaries of John Evelyn and James Boswell before branching off to consider early Arabic diaries such as the 11th century scholar and traveller Ibn Battuta (a new name to me who wrote of a journey of 75,000 miles including a pilgrimage to Mecca.

A chapter on writers’ diaries such as Dostoevsky, Camus, Byron, Kafka, Flaubert, Graham Greene and others points out that “they allow us to eavesdrop on a writer in progress”.  One of the greatest of these would be The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (reviewed by me here) which gives such a vivid account of the way in which Leo Tolstoy wrote his epic works (for some unknown reason the book refers to the diminutive “Sonya” which sounds not quite right somehow!).  I certainly felt inspired to look up some of these volumes of diaries and was pleased to find that typing “diary” or “journal” into  Project Gutenburg brings up quite a few of the major diaries from previous centuries, including Samuel Pepys and James Boswell.

We then move into the 20th century with a chapter on war diaries, including Etty Hillesum (a new name to me), Anne Frank and Victor Klemperer who’s magnificent diary documents the worsening situation of German Jews as the Nazi machine racked up the pressure of persecution.

Today of course we have a wide range of options for writing the story of our lives and Alexandra Johnson’s chapter on Cyberspace and the Digital Diary describes some of the innumerable options for those who have moved beyond the pen and pencil stage of writing their personal histories.   Facebook and Twitter can keep a running account of what we do so friends and family can keep up to date with us.

Countless blogging platforms do the same sort of thing, along with quite a range of diary software to load on your computer, including the free Efficient Diary which can be found here and provides encrypted passwords for those who really want to keep their private diary private. And lets not forget the opportunities for photoblogging for people who want to carry a digital camera with them everywhere they go, even to the extent of recording their daily meals or journey to work.

I enjoyed reading this short book as it reminded me of the long history of diaries and helped me understand where I fit in all this.

I have been pleased to discover that the British Library has selected A Common Reader to form part of its web archive project along with a large number of other blogs.  Like all online writers you wonder what will happen to your writing when you are gone, in the knowledge that hosting arrangements and domain registrations expire as soon as you stop paying the annual renewal fees.  My writings will now be preserved for future generations – but whether they’ll think it worthwhile is another matter.   Your comments will also be archived so by adding your thoughts to mine you achieve a little place in history.

I hope there’s enough content here to inform some future researcher of what an avid reader was reading in the early 21st century.  Perhaps someone in future years may be interested in looking at the history of the transition from paper to electronic forms of reading, in which case my own journey from initial rejection of e-readers to enthusiastic user may be of interest.  However, no doubt even the e-readers of today will seem like stone-age tools by that time.