Thanks to Litlove (and anyone else who may have mentioned her) for introducing me to Alexandra Johnson and pointing me in the direction of her little gem of a book. I recently started reading A Brief History of Diaries: From Pepys to Blogs, and it is turning out to be the perfect introduction to diaries. It forms yet another reading pair alongside Revelations: Diaries of Women which I have been very slowly making my way through. A book about diaries and a book of diaries, what more could I ask for? A Brief History of Diaries is published by the wonderful Hesperus Press (which has put out a series of "history of" books that are now looking very interesting).
With just over a hundred pages it may well be brief, but the book is chock full of interesting information and I have been making little notations and marking pages as I go. Johnson has written other books on diaries and journaling, notably The Hidden Writer: Diaries and the Creative Life, which I also have on hand to read when I finish the brief history. I'm sure there will be some overlap but I expect she'll expand on the theme, as the Hesperus book is really just a very general overview of the subject.
There's lots of name dropping, which I fully expected and like but it's going to make for an even longer list of writers/diarists whose books I'd like to look for to peruse and perhaps read. I'll have to share my findings soon as I have been (gulp) buying and borrowing books as I go. Such enthusiasm is fun, but boy does it make for towering piles of books that are beginning to look a little worrisome next to all the other books I want to read. In a case like this, buying is good as the books will wait patiently for me, but the borrowed titles flaunt those due dates at me every time I look at them.
There is so much information in A Brief History of Diaries, I thought it might be a good idea to post about it a few times rather than share the highlights all at once. Johnson has divided the book into chapters covering the various types of diaries and the corresponding periods when those sorts of diaries flourished. She begins with the innovators, moves on to travel diaries, then writers, artists and creative diaries, and a chapter I'm looking forward to--war diaries then on finally to modern diary keeping for the twentieth century--cyberspace and digital diaries.
A few interesting facts about diaries. We can thank the Chinese for giving us paper around about AD 105. What would diaries be without paper? Although diaries prior to the invention of paper were kept, paper revolutionized diary-keeping. The earliest diarists recorded history rather than the personal. Even from earliest times one of the motivations for keeping a diary was to create a record of having lived. Some of the earliest diarists came from the Arab world and you won't be surprised to know that the opening of international trade routes helped facilitate and give a reason for keeping diaries. Initially diaries were tied to accounting and official business, but by the Renaissance there was a shift from public to private diary keeping.
It wouldn't be until the 17th century when diarists began moving from recording daily life to becoming more introspective and personal. As Johnson notes, the shift was from "Eye" to "I". And a man I want to mention here: Samuel Pepys. He was a diarist extraordinaire. His first diary entry was in 1660 when he was 27. He kept a diary almost continuously (missing only two weeks in 1668--don't you think he would have made a great blogger?) for nine years. That's 3,102 pages to you and me. And he wrote them all in a secret shorthand. It sounds as though if you want to learn about Restoration London, Pepys is the man to read since he was a witness to it all. "Pepys used his opportunities to move diary keeping from confession to self-expression and then into the realm of literature."
After Pepys came James Boswell. Whereas Pepys was a "brilliant amateur" as Alexandra Johnson calls him, Boswell was a Professional. He was the first celebrity diarist. His diaries weren't just confessional in nature, as he wanted to impress and had in mind posterity. He began his London Journal at the age of 22 in 1762. He's probably best known as the biographer of author Samuel Johnson who was his literary mentor. His diaries provided the material for his books, and he was a chronicler of the literary and social world of the period of which he was a fixture. Once again, to get a feel for the period I suspect Boswell's diaries are pretty enlightening, and it seems as though he has an ear for the humorous. In a diary entry from 7 April 1779, "he records that Johnson disliked being reminded that Boswell often had a headache after drinking with him."
"(Johnson) 'Nay, Sir, it was not the wine that had your head ache but the sense I put into it.'
(Boswell) 'Well, Sir, will sense make the head ache?'
(Johnson) 'Yes, Sir, when it is not used to it.'"
Next up I'll be reading about diaries kept by travelers and explorers, which is good as I need a nice change of scenery (even if it is only of the literary sort).