The Private Life of the Diary: From Pepys to Tweets: A History of the Diary as an Art Form

by Sally Bayley

Diaries keep secrets, harboring our fantasies and fictional histories. They are substitute boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses and friends. But in this age of social media, the role of the diary as a private confidante has been replaced by a culture of public self-disclosure. This is an elegantly-told story of the evolution—and perhaps death—of the diary. It traces its origins to 17th-century naval administrator, Samuel Pepys, and continues to 20th-century diarist Virginia Woolf, who recorded everything from her personal confessions about her irritation with her servants to her memories of Armistice Day and the solar eclipse of 1927. Sally Bayley explores how diaries can sometimes record our lives as we live them, but that we often indulge our fondness for self-dramatization, like the teenaged Sylvia Plath who proclaimed herself "The Girl Who Would be God." This book is an examination of the importance of writing and self-reflection as a means of forging identity. It mourns the loss of the diary as an acutely private form of writing, and champions it as a conduit to self-discovery, allowing us to ask ourselves the Who or What am I in relation to the world?

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Diary

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 18, 2016

About the author

Dr Sally Bayley is a tutor in English at Balliol and St. Hugh’s Colleges, Oxford and a member of the Oxford University English Faculty. She is the author of Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath’s Art of the Visual (Oxford University Press, 2007). Eye Rhymes was the first study of Plath’s art work in relation to her body of poetry and prose and was featured in the Sunday Times magazine, on Radio 4 and at the Royal Festival Hall alongside a series of uniquely commissioned pieces of theatre, dance, art and animation, several of which won awards.

In 2007 alongside the publication of Eye Rhymes Sally Bayley commissioned a play exploring the representation of Sylvia Plath's biography. The award winning play, I Wish I Had A Sylvia Plath, a one woman show written and performed by Elisabeth Gray, will run Off Broadway for the month of October 2010. The play will feature alongside a symposium at New York University and will include the director and producer of the forthcoming film adaptation of Plath's novel The Bell Jar: Tristine Skyer and Julia Stiles.

Source: http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/about-fac...

Reviews

[Sophie (RedheadReading) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this but it was not what I expected. I think I was expecting something a little more analytical whereas this is a very flowing and descriptive account (which consequently means it's very easy to read and does make for enjoyable reading!). The diary is explored by theme/topic with each chapter taking a theme and looking at a number of diaries, almost like case studies; the two main figures that run throughout are Virginia Woolf and Samuel Pepys. However, there is also an autobiographical element that runs alongside this as well, with the author imparting her personal history with the diary and snapshots into her life as well.

I definitely enjoyed all of this but there are things that I felt were slightly lacking as well. For example, I would have liked more focus in the final paragraph to have been placed on our relationships with diary-keeping nowadays. There was brief mention of tweets and blogging but I would have liked a deeper focus on our contemporary attitude to documenting the self and the way this has evolved. The author does mention at one point that she is not very familiar with twitter etc and I did feel like this came across. Rather than dismissing the superficiality of social media, an examination into the ways that people construct and negotiate their sense of self through documenting the immediacy of life in digital form would have been cool. But maybe that's just a result of my coming in with preconceived expectations!

Overall, I definitely enjoyed this and it was interesting getting snapshots into the diaries of many notable figures, as well as contrasting the ways they all approached diary writing differently. The writing was enjoyable and engaging so if you are looking for a light and easy read that will keep you entertained whilst learning more about certain historical figures then I would definitely recommend.

[Dorotea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sally Bayley narrates her life interwoven with the ones of different writers, prominently Pepys and Woolf – all bound by the thread of diary-writing

[Oleg Shevelyov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stopped at about 25%. It's not badly written but the language is too ornate and narration is all over the place to my taste. I hoped to learn about different techniques of diary writing, different approaches, some analysis, but the book is more about famous diarists and their lives. It was curious to read at times but I realised I didn't learn much from it and barely remembered anything after reading.

[Sandra Miksa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super informative. A really good survey of the diary in its past and present form, in its private and social life. Bayley really did put a lot of thought, research, and fragments of diarist to support her points and it made me fall in love all over again with this form of writing, having religiously kept a diary myself for over 10 years now.
The first half of this book was really engrossing and quick paced but it did drag at the "political/scandal" diary section. That specific part was a bit tedious and info-dumpy.
But like I said, Bayley does a good overview through time and space of the diary, from Pepys and beyond to the digital age, our age.
Highly recommend this one! Especially to diary lovers and keepers, or even for ones intrigued by the form.

[Dee Michell · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the most part I enjoyed this book, particularly the mix of memoir and critical reflection on the function of the diary. A bit less detail on particular diaries and more of an overview, including gender differences, would have been good,

[Lizixer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this book up on a whim at the library as I have been keeping a diary for a while. The author takes some well known diarists like Plath, Pepys, Woolf, Alan Clark plus some lesser known ones and looks at how they handle certain themes such as war, coming of age, politics.

It was interesting but perhaps not as interesting as Bayley’s life, glimpsed in between the great and the good, as she talks about her unconventional childhood, her spell in a children’s detention centre, her own use of the diary as a retreat from a taxing life. These were the parts I read with more interest than Woolf mooning around or Pepys’s sex life.

She offers advice on diary writing at the end and I’m pleased to say she suggests using the Notes app in your phone as it’s always close to you, it’s pretty private and you can write anywhere on it without attracting too much attention. Personally, I’d love to spend days writing elegantly in fine notebooks but I don’t have the temperament it turns out, despite trying hard, or the storage space for all those journals. So the Notes app works for me.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sally Bailey mixes the history of the diary (and of some famous diary writers like Pepys and Virginia Woolf) with her private thoughts about her rather chaotic youth and her own diary writing, and it is a powerful mix. I had a bit of difficulty in the beginning of the book, but then it caught on, and it regularly surprised me. Not a literary must have or must read but a very nice assembly of history and reflection on a fascinating subject: not only the reader looks into the soul of the writer, but so does he. Nice and happy to have read it.

[Alison Pilkington · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave up about a quarter of the way through as I just wasn’t enjoying it or learning anything. The style was very disjointed and when she started on what could have been interesting it didn’t seem to go anywhere. Not what I was expecting from the description which is a shame as I like diaries and it sounded interesting

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.

[Andy Horton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating reflection on diary or journal writing, using well-known distrusts as examples of the form along with Sally Bayley’s own experiences keeping diaries from childhood on.

[Louise Armstrong · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's interesting that this book was funded by crowd sourcing, so a lot of people must have found value in it, but I put it down a third of the way through and simply couldn't be bothered to pick it up again. I don't care much for Wolf, and I don't know much about Boswell, and there was something floaty about the text that wasn't doing it for me. The author is probably thinking ahead of where I can understand.

[Ruby · Rating 3 out of 5]

a little too much all over the place for me - i think i get the tradition bayley is writing in (mixing memoir and criticism) but i'm not sure it was entirely working here. i also found it oddly judgmental in places. the first two chapters are really good, though.

[Rosetta Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a good read. Lots to think about later and so many interesting stories in it. I loved this book

[Jason RB · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really lovely book. Easy to read, well structured and whilst slightly whimsical there is enough there to keep you interested and reaching for the next page