The Diary Review

Eighty years ago today, ‘with this very nib-ful of ink’, Virginia Woolf finished a first draft of her most experimental novel, The Waves . I...

‘I set out from Compiegne, delighted with the idea of such a pleasant journey. I had never before travelled without sadness, but now felt th...

William Wordsworth, one of the great British Romantic poets, died 160 years ago today. Although he was not a diarist, his sister, Dorothy, w...

Oxford University Press has just re-published Antera Duke’s diary. Antera Duke was an African slave-trading chief, and his diary is said to ...

‘Many officers of Light cavalry were killed, and a number slightly wounded. There were no infantry early in the morning, and when they did c...

Battle of Britain diaries to be tweeted in real time - The Daily Telegraph Twitter Updates likened to 18th century diaries - The Wall Stre...

Today is the 30th anniversary of the day I met Manu in an Ibiza cafe, a lovely man with whom I am still in touch today. But that encounter o...

‘When I woke up I heard a sound, it grew even louder, I could no longer imagine myself in a dream, music was sounding, and what music!’ This...

‘I have always thought it would be unwholesome for me to attempt to write a diary. I’m sure it will make me think my life drab and strain af...

Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Clarkson, a major figure in the anti-slavery movement of the late 1700s and early 1800...

‘This day news reached the town that three men had been murdered in Omata. With wilful imprudence, and in defiance of general remonstrances,...

Roland Barthes, one of France’s great 20th century thinkers, died thirty years ago today. Although not known as a diarist, he did occasional...

‘To breakfast, where was a canteloupe. Wretched, it being the season’s first.’ So began one of the most popular American columns of a centur...