Famous diarists and letter-writers

Fanny Burney sounds like exactly who you're looking for. Entertainment, politics and society all in one.

Christopher Isherwood, Andy Warhol, Joe Orton, Noel Coward

Derek Jarman

James Lees-Milne

Alan Bennett

Virginia Woolf, Ossie Clarke

[quote] Virginia Woolf

Her diaries contain all the genius of her fiction books but are more approachable. They are delightful.

The paperbacks are inexpensive.

Woolf was good at pointless bitchery, for sure...

I just finished the collected letters of American poet James Merrill, The Whole World. It’s a doorstop of a book and I think only contains about 20% of what was available. His father was one of the founders of Merrill Lynch and he grew up having and living an extremely privileged life. Great schools, all the right editors and publishers, close friends among the famous, creative, rich and powerful. He basically never had a real job outside of teaching at Bard for a year, and just spent his life traveling and living all over the world writing and publishing at his own leisure. He was Gay and had a long term complicate partner relationship, but then many significant lovers as well including a straight Greek young man, a New Mexico painter and a fringe young actor. He his brilliant, brittle and catty in his letters and is definitely a master of the form. There’s a lot of gay history eveloving over time in the letters and one of the best encapsulation of that in a voyeur way that I’ve read.

Actually, R9 reminds me that Thom Gunn's letters are out now, and what I have read is quite good.

Joe Orton and Kenneth Williams.

Though the latter one really made me think less of him. But that's the problem with diaries - they're not meant to be read by other people.

There's also Mechanical Fantasy Box: The Homoerotic Journal of Patrick Cowley - if you like sex diaries.

You have to get that biography of Kenneth, R11, it prints his poem about butt sex. I believe the poem is called "The Smell"....

Thank you for all the suggestions so far, please continue.

I’ve read a few of the suggestions already, but I have now added a lot more to my reading list!

I think I’m going to try to get a copy of John Gielgud’s letters next. I heard a dramatisation of them on radio years ago, and I have wanted them ever since. I’m also really looking forward to Alan Rickman’s diaries coming out later this year, I think.

If you liked Pepys, you might enjoy the diaries of Alan Clark, Woodrow Wyatt, and Chips Channon. The former two were rich well-connected snobbish Conservatives in the febrile time of Thatcher. Channon all the above plus gay, but in the lead up to WWII and beyond.

US cultural life and varying degrees of gayness are explored in the diaries of Ned Rorem, and John Cheever.

And Glenway Wescott!

It won’t be easy to get, but this is a stunning collection of 350 letters sent by three sisters to their father who had been a New Hampshire congressman, but abandoned them and their little brother to follow the gold rush and they basically never really heard from him again, while struggling to keep up appearances of their life back East.

Anais Nin.

You might enjoy The Assassin’s Cloak. It’s 365 days of various diaries and is a well balanced anthology.

I would suggest Proust but nobody enjoys reading Proust.

Proust is pretty rough, it's true.

Proust is a bore.

Proust gives you about two highlight scenes per book. Which seems fair? More than James.

Anne "Gentleman Jack" Lister.

OP: my parents belonged to a sixties “ book club” . Display them on your shelves and look smart.

Of course my bougey sisters didn’t want any. I have a two volume set of the Diary of Samuel Pepys!!!! I opened it once — youre much more of a brainiac then I,

My favorite was the three volume set of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire . I read the whole thing just by looking at the spine. Vol 1 depicts an intact pillar, vols 2 and 3 go progressively downhill

Proust had a moment in the 80s. Much as Trollope did in the 90s. I never bothered with either.

The letters of gay poet Hart Crane are fascinating

If you want to know what life was like for a gay man in Victorian times, the diary of Edward Leeves is a good start

I don't think you can dismiss Proust so easily. The California Raisins had a moment in the 80s. Proust lasts because nobody actually reads it - they prattle about madeleines and then move on.

Not a rec, per se, because I haven't yet read it, but Alice James, sister to Henry James, wrote a diary that's supposed to be worth the read.

And the California Raisins were just as annoying as people writing high brow articles about Proust. Much as a certain swath of feminist writers adopted Sylvia Plath as a talisman but didn't really care about her.

R12, how detailed does that book get? Does he describe actual sex he had or watched?

Can you favor us with a short passage?

A second rec for the two (so far - the third and final comes out in September) volumes of Henry "Chips" Channon's diaries covering his arrival in the UK during WWI up to 1943. He was an American from Chicago, bisexual, married a Guinness heiress and got elected to Parliament. Some of his personal observations were spot on - people he knew unfortunate enough to die while the pen was in his hand are often captured in less than flattering obituaries - but his political opinions were almost invariably wrong. Still, he was there, he had access to the great and the good and he was a terrific writer.

One shortcoming the editor, Simon Heffer, never fails to footnote and correct was Channon's assessment of someone's age, usually off by a decade or so.

The letters between Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo are very moving.

The letters between Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf are amusingly acerbic and sardonic.

Interesting thread. I'd surely read Alan Bennett's.

How many of you keep a diary? I don't but i write fairly personal articles.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's letters to her daughter (a selection of which can be found in F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing) are full of insightful gems on writing and life in general.

Woolf's diaries reveal that she was more of a compulsive reader: would start numerous books at the same time and left none of them finished.

I read the letters of Eudora Welty to the mystery writer Ross Macdonald. They became friends late in life and, as the letters document, he was soon developing the early Alzheimer's disease that ended his career and then his life. Although they were both very socially active, the connection they made with each other, mostly at a distance (she in Mississippi, he in Santa Barbara), was almost instantaneous and very special to them both. Welty was a wonderful writer and friend. The book is very well-edited to fill in gaps as you read the correspondence.

Les Mémoires de Saint-Simon

A prototypical DLer, incomparable in wit and pointless bitchery vis-à-vis the people he wrote about.

True to DL fashion, the duke was obsessed with rank and order of precedence to make the contributors to the BRF threads cream their collective panties.

He also yearned for a bygone era in which the King and nobility set the example for all to follow and peasants knew their places.

Alan Rickman's diaries were released this week. The Guardian had some snippets.

Samuel Pepys

Queen Victoria was dedicated diarist. I've only read a few excerpts, but from those she appeared to be a descriptive and lively writer. Unfortunately, her daughter Beatrice burned most of them. What a loss.

Queen Elizabeth kept a daily journal, but was said to get bored after two minutes. These diaries are going to be kept unpublished for decades.

Only on DL would someone make seamless comparisons between Proust and the California Raisins.

If Queen Victoria was a dedicated diarist, does that mean the California Raisins were desiccated diarists?

🤣 Of course, r44. Do you have to ask?

If you are an American history buff, you might like to know about these Civil War diaries:

The letters of Philip Larkin are quite humorous. Kenneth Williams diaries also quite good. Such a bitchy old queen.

I really enjoyed The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman, an out gay man and former editor of Vanity Fair. He writes about his delicate friendship with both Maria Callas and Jackie, including when Jackie came by with little John to show him a curated apartment and great art. He also mentored Steve Martin when Steve wanted to start an art collection. ell-written and fun.

[quote] Woolf was good at pointless bitchery, for sure..

'Pointless bitchery" are ugly words but Virginia's humour is refined and delightful.

"never had a real job outside of teaching at Bard for a year"

Oh, are we calling that a real job now?

R36 not sure how one dedicates oneself to diarising and keeps it authentic and entertaining. Have often daydreamed of trying, but I fear I'm too boring, or my life is. Reckon I'd run out of new original things to say quickly, even had I endless money and time and travel opportunities as many 'great' diarists seem to.

[quote] Alan Bennett's.

His diaries are at his best. (he can't write full-length plays)

How is it that no one has yet mentioned the published diaries of Richard Burton, once the subject of a fascinating DL thread?

I found Alice James' diary disappointing, so will not recommend. Maybe I built it up too much in my mind and for too long.

Next on the list is "Journal of a Disappointed Man," by W.N.P. Barbellion. Sounds depressing as hell, but supposedly it's uplifting and quite good.

Anne Frank

The other day I found, inside an old steamer trunk, my collection of sex letters. I wrote them to a married policeman I was infatuated with during the late 90s. The things I wrote! Very very lewd.

R56 Is your name Harry Styles or E.M.Forster?