The Diary Review

‘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...

André-Marie Ampère, dubbed the father of electrodynamics, was born 250 years ago today. A child of the enlightenment and Rousseau’s educatio...

‘For weeks I have been tormented by witnessing these most somber events of our century (and perhaps of my whole life); it enrages me to belo...

‘We went this afternoon to the Louvre, [. . .] Some of Canaletto’s views of Venice we admired very much; many of the subjects are not agreea...

‘I, Dali, deep in a constant introspection and a meticulous analysis of my smallest thoughts, have just discovered that, without realising i...

‘The Prospect of Constantinople, when ye behold it from the top of the Channel, at the distance of two Miles, is beyond compare, as being to...