The Diary Review

London-based publisher JR Books Ltd has just brought out a posthumous collection of writings by Humphrey Lyttelton who died earlier this yea...

The British Library has just acquired a large archive of material written by Ted Hughes, the celebrated British poet who died ten years ago ...

A popular history magazine in Sweden has just disclosed that one of the country’s kings - Charles XIII - used to draw penises in his diary, ...

Arthur Jephson, a young adventurer and African explorer, died one hundred years ago today. He’s not well remembered, but he would be even le...

The diaries of Britain’s last hangman - Harry Allen - are up for auction. Gruesome they maybe, but they also provide a fascinating if somewh...

Diaries written by a former head of the French intelligence agency, Yves Bertrand, are at the centre of scandalous allegations about Preside...

Some diaries written by Sean Lester, one of Ireland’s most distinguished statesmen and the last Secretary General of the League of Nations, ...

Sir Douglas Mawson, an Australian geologist and explorer, died 50 years ago today. But he might have expired nearly 50 years earlier - as di...

I am in Greece, on holiday, until the 14th. By coincidence, exactly 30 years ago this week, I was also in Greece on holiday. I’d gone to vis...

Exactly a quarter of a millennium ago, on 7 October 1758, a Sussex shopkeeper named Thomas Turner turned to his diary to moan and groan at s...

Henry Chips Channon died 50 years ago today. Although American-born, he became a British MP, but is mostly remembered today for his diaries,...

John Blow, an English organist and composer, died three hundred years ago today. He taught Henry Purcell, was one of James II’s musicians, a...

Today is Independence Day in Tuvalu. It’s also the 25th anniversary of the country’s independence from Britain. Formerly known as the Ellice...

Abel J Herzberg, a Dutch lawyer in Amsterdam, was arrested by the Nazis in 1943 and, by January 1944, was incarcerated in the Bergen-Belsen ...

It’s Horatio Nelson’s birthday. One of Britain’s greatest heroes was born 250 years ago today on 29 September 1758. He is not famed for his ...

John Churton Collins, a writer and literary critic at the turn of the last century, died 100 years ago in mysterious circumstances. However,...

Today is the 100th anniversary of the independent state of Bulgaria (according to the old style Julian calendar) which is as good an excuse ...

Mika Waltari, one of Finland’s most widely known and translated writers, was born a hundred years ago today. He became best known for his hi...