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A Brief History of Diaries: From Pepys to Blogs
At a time when journals are staking their territory on the blogosphere, this is a timely consideration of the diary's origins and its long history in literary, political, and scientific realms alike Be they fearless, candid, naïve, or exhibitionistic, personal bloggers now occupy an extraordinary position—projecting their inner most lives to all those with an internet connection. This is merely the most recent mutation of a unique—and often misunderstood—literary form. Tracing the diary's quirky and compelling history through centuries of writing for and about one's self, this intriguing guide traces the art form back to when the earliest pilgrims and explorers kept journals on their findings, scientists such as Darwin used them to develop their theories, and writers from Tolstoy to Virginia Woolf to Lessing mined diaries for their creative work. Historical and political diaries—most famously that of Anne Frank—are also included in the mix to illuminate what diaries do enable a inwards movement so that the troubled mind can find a way outwards into the world.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
112 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 7, 2014
As the title suggests, this is in fact a brief history of diaries; a very easy read if you have a couple of hours to kill, and would like to learn more about, well, diarists. There's not much more to say: Johnson gives us a couple of pages on the obvious (Pepys, Boswell), the well known (Darwin, Lewis & Clark, Thoreau), and selected authors (Burney, Mansfield, Woolf, Tolstoys). There were two surprises: first, the 'war diaries' section was given over primarily to women (Frank, Chestnut, Hillesum, Iris Origo), which worked very well. Second, the final chapter on 'cyberspace and digital diarists' is intellectually offensive: 12 or so pages about how LIKE THE INTERNET REVOLUTIONISES EVERYTHING AND NOW EVERYTHING IS GREAT BECAUSE WE'RE SHARING AND NOT ASHAMED YOU KNOW? Lest you think I'm exaggerating:
"Twenty-first-century diary keeping is now that perfect mix of confession, self-expression and moral improvement by sharing rather than concealing... Foursquare, a mobile social network, now allows users to tell others where they are located at that precise moment."
Goodbye, Virginia Woolf, today we have Foursquare--making the world a better... wait, does Foursquare even exist anymore? Apparently so. But it's not clear to me what any of this has to do with diaries.
More importantly, the Brief History is determinedly nominalist; no attempts to bring things together (except to point out how GREAT EVERYTHING IS TODAY), little attempt to link the use of diaries to anything outside of diaries. But that's just a reason to read more diaries, and books about diaries. Johnson's book certainly made me want to do that, which is no mean thing.
"Twenty-first-century diary keeping is now that perfect mix of confession, self-expression and moral improvement by sharing rather than concealing... Foursquare, a mobile social network, now allows users to tell others where they are located at that precise moment."
Goodbye, Virginia Woolf, today we have Foursquare--making the world a better... wait, does Foursquare even exist anymore? Apparently so. But it's not clear to me what any of this has to do with diaries.
More importantly, the Brief History is determinedly nominalist; no attempts to bring things together (except to point out how GREAT EVERYTHING IS TODAY), little attempt to link the use of diaries to anything outside of diaries. But that's just a reason to read more diaries, and books about diaries. Johnson's book certainly made me want to do that, which is no mean thing.
August 15, 2017
Loses a star for calling Frances Burney 'Fanny' - but overall good for an interesting, quick read.
February 6, 2021
As someone who's a huge fan of journaling & keeping a diary, I really got into this book so hence the high rating though I don't know if I'd recommend it generally. If you're fascinated by other people's diaries and the role they've played in history and lives, check out the book. If you're not so fascinated by that subject you're probably going to find this boring. I like the structure of the chapters progressing from the 18th century to the modern, showing how keeping a diary has evolved. My only complaint is that the author jumps back and forth between different time periods for examples sometimes to illustrate a point but the examples don't always fit the era of the chapter. It's a minor complaint but it did stick out and give me pause a few times, breaking up the flow of the book.
December 14, 2020
I've long been an inconsistent journaler. I suppose it's the writer in me that feels a compulsion to put things down on paper. And as long as blogging has been around, I've been a part of it—from LiveJournal meanderings to my full-time job with Art of Manliness for the last 6+ years.
Turns out that keeping a journal (or diary—Johnson uses the terms interchangeably) is nearly as old as the practice of writing itself. In just over 100 pages, Johnson walks us through that history, highlighting famed diarists and their work, and more importantly, the various purposes those journals have served for both keeper and later readers.
I really enjoyed the organization of the book; Johnson divided it up into categories that are somewhat chronological (though not strictly so): travelers and explorers, writers and artists, war diaries, and finally bloggers and diaries of the social media variety. It was a fun way to explore journaling through the centuries.
There's Samuel Pepys—the diarist you've probably never heard of, but is famous for keeping an extensive daily account of 17th century London over the course of about a decade. His journal was one the first to be made widely available to readers, and his life was so interesting that there are now numerous books about Pepys and his times.
There are the transcendentalists of the 1800s, namely Emerson and Thoreau, whose journals led to some of America's most important works of literature, including, most famously, Walden—a work that I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't read yet.
There's Anne Frank, whose teenage diary during the Holocaust has become the most consumed work of the genre (even if it's required reading in many cases), opening the eyes of generations of young people to the realities and atrocities of Hitler.
Johnson also includes a wonderful reading list of the best and most influential published journals/diaries, from which I added a number of titles to my own TBR (To Be Read). I've not read many journals, but I'm now looking forward to reading more.
While certainly not everyone's cup of tea, if you're a journaler yourself or just enjoy the voyeurism of reading other people's, this is a great little book.
Turns out that keeping a journal (or diary—Johnson uses the terms interchangeably) is nearly as old as the practice of writing itself. In just over 100 pages, Johnson walks us through that history, highlighting famed diarists and their work, and more importantly, the various purposes those journals have served for both keeper and later readers.
I really enjoyed the organization of the book; Johnson divided it up into categories that are somewhat chronological (though not strictly so): travelers and explorers, writers and artists, war diaries, and finally bloggers and diaries of the social media variety. It was a fun way to explore journaling through the centuries.
There's Samuel Pepys—the diarist you've probably never heard of, but is famous for keeping an extensive daily account of 17th century London over the course of about a decade. His journal was one the first to be made widely available to readers, and his life was so interesting that there are now numerous books about Pepys and his times.
There are the transcendentalists of the 1800s, namely Emerson and Thoreau, whose journals led to some of America's most important works of literature, including, most famously, Walden—a work that I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't read yet.
There's Anne Frank, whose teenage diary during the Holocaust has become the most consumed work of the genre (even if it's required reading in many cases), opening the eyes of generations of young people to the realities and atrocities of Hitler.
Johnson also includes a wonderful reading list of the best and most influential published journals/diaries, from which I added a number of titles to my own TBR (To Be Read). I've not read many journals, but I'm now looking forward to reading more.
While certainly not everyone's cup of tea, if you're a journaler yourself or just enjoy the voyeurism of reading other people's, this is a great little book.
April 11, 2022
Johnson breaks the timeline of diarists into types beginning with those who gave descriptions of life in their time period. Within this group are those who included public and private events and those who covered daily life. These were the earliest. The next type discussed are travel which starts with some from the 9th century and continue today. The next two types which overlap are creative and war diaries. The first of these are writers and artists who write about their process and ideas as well as their lives. War diaries are the rawest form and began in the 19th century. The last section covers today's electronic formats from diary software to blogs to video, documenting all of our tell all, me oriented society. Interesting but nothing earth shattering.
May 4, 2024
I liked to read about the background of diaries, because I'm a journaler myself.
Particulary the part about the war diaries I found interesting.
Particulary the part about the war diaries I found interesting.
May 18, 2015
“Diaries. No genre is more misunderstood, more open to confusion and misinformation. That strange hybrid of recording and reflecting, confession and self-reflection, no genre is more forced to justify itself,” Alexandra Johnson writes in her 2011 book “A Brief History of Diaries: From Pepys to Blogs.”
Johnson, who taught writing at Harvard and Wellesley and now teaches at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., attempts to explicate diaries in the 105-page paperback, part of the “A Brief History” series from Hesperus Press.
Diaries – or journals, both words come from the Latin word for “day” – can be traced to China and later the area around the Mediterranean. The spread of paper in late medieval Europe made not only book production possible but the writing of diaries easier. “Diary keeping took deepest root in Italy, where paper production exploded, most notably in the two cities with early printing presses: Florence and Venice,” Johnson explains.
She briefly looks at the early Italian diary writers such as Lapo Niccolini and Luca Landucci, a Florentine apothecary who kept a diary from 1450 to 1516. “Written in his apothecary shop on Canto de’ Tornaquinci, it’s the first surviving diary in which we hear the voice of the ordinary private citizen.”
We read in the book about some of the famous names in diaries (Samuel Pepys, James Boswell) and not so well known (John Evelyn). Johnson calls Pepys “the inventor of the truly modern diary.” She comments, “Pepys is the ideal diarist – keenly observant yet unself-conscious. Pepys displays an endless childlike delight in exploring the immediate world with bounding curiosity.” His diary covered the years 1660 to 1669 and comprised 3,102 pages and 1½ million words, all in a secret shorthand.
One chapter examines travel diaries, including those of Lewis and Clark, Charles Darwin, the Donner party, Robert Scott, and Henry David Thoreau. One of the most famous of diaries was that of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark who traveled 8,000 miles by foot and canoe in 2½ years (1804-06) through what became 10 Americans states.
“The journals, later published in thirteen volumes, are comprised of field notebooks, open or public journals, as well as those kept for the explorers themselves,” Johnson says. “Lewis and Clark are the Pepys of the natural world.”
Other chapters take a brief look at writer’s diaries (Leo Tolstoy, Katherine Mansfield, Fanny Burney, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka), and war diaries (Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum, Viktor Klemperer, T.E. Lawrence, Mary Chestnut).
The most widely read diary in the world is that of Anne Frank, written in Dutch while she and her family hid in the secret annex of a three-story office building in Amsterdam from June 1942 to August 1944 during the German occupation.
“Ever since its first 1947 publication,” Johnson comments, “tens of millions of readers have discovered what Otto Frank first saw in Anne’s diary: a child maturing into an adult before one’s eyes, fighting loneliness and anxiety. But it also showed a diary’s capacity to shelter and transform a self in extremity. Anne Frank’s diary provides the clearest link between war, trauma and creativity. It sets the standard against which all war diaries, past and present, are measured.”
Finally in the last chapter, Johnson takes us into the 21st century world of digital diaries and blogs.
This short book on diaries may be frustrating to those wanting a more comprehensive account of diaries. However, those seeking a more detailed examination of the subject should direct themselves to the diaries themselves and the biographies of diary writers. For those thinking of beginning a diary or using the material in a diary for creative writing, Johnson’s previous books, “The Hidden Writer” (1998) and “Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal” (2002) would be a good place to start.
Johnson, who taught writing at Harvard and Wellesley and now teaches at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., attempts to explicate diaries in the 105-page paperback, part of the “A Brief History” series from Hesperus Press.
Diaries – or journals, both words come from the Latin word for “day” – can be traced to China and later the area around the Mediterranean. The spread of paper in late medieval Europe made not only book production possible but the writing of diaries easier. “Diary keeping took deepest root in Italy, where paper production exploded, most notably in the two cities with early printing presses: Florence and Venice,” Johnson explains.
She briefly looks at the early Italian diary writers such as Lapo Niccolini and Luca Landucci, a Florentine apothecary who kept a diary from 1450 to 1516. “Written in his apothecary shop on Canto de’ Tornaquinci, it’s the first surviving diary in which we hear the voice of the ordinary private citizen.”
We read in the book about some of the famous names in diaries (Samuel Pepys, James Boswell) and not so well known (John Evelyn). Johnson calls Pepys “the inventor of the truly modern diary.” She comments, “Pepys is the ideal diarist – keenly observant yet unself-conscious. Pepys displays an endless childlike delight in exploring the immediate world with bounding curiosity.” His diary covered the years 1660 to 1669 and comprised 3,102 pages and 1½ million words, all in a secret shorthand.
One chapter examines travel diaries, including those of Lewis and Clark, Charles Darwin, the Donner party, Robert Scott, and Henry David Thoreau. One of the most famous of diaries was that of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark who traveled 8,000 miles by foot and canoe in 2½ years (1804-06) through what became 10 Americans states.
“The journals, later published in thirteen volumes, are comprised of field notebooks, open or public journals, as well as those kept for the explorers themselves,” Johnson says. “Lewis and Clark are the Pepys of the natural world.”
Other chapters take a brief look at writer’s diaries (Leo Tolstoy, Katherine Mansfield, Fanny Burney, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka), and war diaries (Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum, Viktor Klemperer, T.E. Lawrence, Mary Chestnut).
The most widely read diary in the world is that of Anne Frank, written in Dutch while she and her family hid in the secret annex of a three-story office building in Amsterdam from June 1942 to August 1944 during the German occupation.
“Ever since its first 1947 publication,” Johnson comments, “tens of millions of readers have discovered what Otto Frank first saw in Anne’s diary: a child maturing into an adult before one’s eyes, fighting loneliness and anxiety. But it also showed a diary’s capacity to shelter and transform a self in extremity. Anne Frank’s diary provides the clearest link between war, trauma and creativity. It sets the standard against which all war diaries, past and present, are measured.”
Finally in the last chapter, Johnson takes us into the 21st century world of digital diaries and blogs.
This short book on diaries may be frustrating to those wanting a more comprehensive account of diaries. However, those seeking a more detailed examination of the subject should direct themselves to the diaries themselves and the biographies of diary writers. For those thinking of beginning a diary or using the material in a diary for creative writing, Johnson’s previous books, “The Hidden Writer” (1998) and “Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal” (2002) would be a good place to start.
June 22, 2014
The best thing about this book was learning about diarists that I hadn't heard of before, and it had some excellent quotes about diary keeping, which I enjoyed. The first chapter was my favorite, but as I read on, I grew more dissatisfied. It IS very short, and I was hoping for more women and other cultures. There's a nod to pillow books in the first chapter, but they are never mentioned again. I feel sure that there are more journals in other countries not represented: India? Brazil? South Africa? The author mentions that many of the most widely known diaries are by women, but there are more men in this book than women. And the chapter on the internet was very disappointing. She didn't mention tumblr (though I think that came out after this was published), wordpress, blogger, livejournal, or blogspot. She doesn't mention the growth of vlogging (which she definitely should have known about), she thinks people still write blogs and diary entries on facebook, and she namedrops Foursquare out of nowhere in the final paragraph. Is Foursquare even remotely diary-ish?
I also found this frustrating because of the lack of serial commas, the abrupt (non existent) transitions between topics, and the occasionally oddly worded sentence or quote or pronoun without a clear reference.
I also found this frustrating because of the lack of serial commas, the abrupt (non existent) transitions between topics, and the occasionally oddly worded sentence or quote or pronoun without a clear reference.
September 22, 2015
I bought this book because I love reading novels that are written in a diary format. I also loved reading extracts from the diaries of Samuel Pepys when I was at school. This book introduced me to historical diarists I’d never heard of and led to the purchase of two new books. The extracts from diaries chosen by the author were wonderful. As well as the obvious historical treasure contained in a diary, the psychological benefits of keeping a diary were discussed. I would love it if this author would now write a short book about fictional diaries.
February 9, 2012
This was a really interesting read- it wasn't mindblowing in terms of other books I've read so that's why I've had to give it a 3/5 but it was a very good book on the subject of diaries and jornals throughout history- a must read for avid diary writers or literature fans who love reading about the history of writing.
April 24, 2016
Interesting in that I learnt about diarists of whom I'd never heard - Etty Hillesum, Mary Chestnut and Iris Origo (all women, yay!) - but oddly dissatisfying for its brevity. It felt like the book only just scratched the surface. And the print in my edition was tiny!
March 8, 2015
A very brief introduction and history of the practice of diary keeping and that is precisely the point: keep it brief, consistent and get started as soon as you finish this book.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews