The Diary Review

George Sand, the famous French writer, cigar smoker and lover of artists, died 140 years ago today. A hard working and prolific author of no...

Sir Neil Campbell, a British army officer who rose to become a colonial governor, was born 250 years ago today. He is largely remembered for...

André Michaux, a French botanist and explorer sent to North America in search of new species to replenish the forests of France, was born 28...

René  Maria Rilke, one of the most intense of German-language poets and considered by some to be a founder of modernist poetry, was born 150...

‘The floor is made of tile mosaics as are the walls - no seat - only a hole which seems narrow to me at ground level. One has to be agile - ...

‘Started forward at 6 a.m. H plus ½ hour. Heavy fog. Found men coming back and took them along with me. Heavy fire all around from m.g. Foun...

François Mauriac, a French novelist and Nobel Prize winner barely read in the English world, was born 130 years ago today. As an old man eme...

On a hot August afternoon in 1871, the Reverend Canon Arthur Charles Copeman and his brother-in-law trudged from Mont Dol to St Malo, their ...

‘I’m strapped to this journal. Grunt. Heave. Impression that the ship is going down. The furniture slides, the table legs wobble …’ This is ...

‘His Excellency’s brother was, accompanied by some gentlemen, to visit the Baile of Venice, whom he found very badly housed at the foot of a...