The Diary Review

‘I am 44 today and I have a distinct feeling I have reached halfway exactly. So far in my adult years I have lived by temperament and a bell...

‘For a fortnight JH and I have been trimming the fat from this volume, fat being the truth that endangers. The book still seems bloated, for...

‘Only you, my diary, know that it is here I show my fears, weaknesses, my complaints, my disillusions. I feel I cannot be weak outside becau...

Joe Orton could have been celebrating his 90th birthday today had he not been murdered by his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, in 1967! For a brief...

Lili Elbe, a Danish painter and famously a transgender woman, was born 140 years ago today. She wrote an autobiographical memoir - Man into ...

The Austrian author, Robert Musil, died 80 years ago today. His most famous work and one of the masterpieces of 20th century European litera...

Dr Nigel Rusted, a Canadian doctor much honoured and credited with having made outstanding contributions to the medical profession in Newfou...

Derek Jarman, the extraordinarily inventive film-maker, was born 80 years ago today. He was a fervent campaigner for gay rights, but died in...

‘The most beautiful poem there is, is life - life which discerns its own story in the making, in which inspiration and self-consciousness go...

Pedro de Alvarado, one of Spain’s most successful and famous conquistadors, conqueror of much of Central America, died 480 years ago today. ...

Philip Toynbee, a British literary novelist and critic, died 40 years ago today. Best remembered, perhaps, for his reviews in the Sunday bro...