Your favorite diaries of famous people

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Irulan
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07 Sep 2019, 1:33 pm

What is your favorite diary kept by a famous person that got published? Mine are (in this very order): L. M. Montgomery's, Zlata Filipovic's and Samuel Pepys' ones. Even if the diary by Pepys is relatively boring, especially that it's written in such an obsolete language (even when it comes to its Polish translation I read - the translator, Maria Dąbrowska, tried to do her best to preserve the spirit of that time period by using Polish expressions that were just as obsolete as the language of the original diary). I also tried to read the diary kept by Maria Dąbrowska herself but it was incredibly boring. Btw, Mrs. Dąbrowska, a famous writer from my country, was a bisexual lady and had a girlfriend, Anna Kowalska, with whom they together raised Anna's daughter. But I didn't understand this when I was reading Maria's diary - I thought that those two were just ordinary friends living together and that's all. I tried reading also another Polish writer, Zofia Nałkowska's journal but it was boring too.



Juliette
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08 Sep 2019, 5:59 pm

❤️ Anne Frank, also visited her home last year... the attic she was living in before her capture, in Amsterdam. Also, visited Mozart’s home, and have read his life story. I’ve read a few biographies... enjoyed “Einstein in Love” & “Gold Dust Woman”: The Biography of Stevie Nicks, as well as Mick Fleetwood’s “Play On”.



IsabellaLinton
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08 Sep 2019, 6:05 pm

The Brontës: A Life in Letters (ed. Juliet Barker)

The Journals of Mary Shelley (ed. Diana Scott-Kilvert)


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jimmy m
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08 Sep 2019, 9:03 pm

In my book collection, I only have one diary. It is by Anna Green Winslow in 1771.

In the year 1770, a bright little girl of ten years of age was sent from her far away home in Nova Scotia to Boston, Massachusetts to be finished at Boston Schools. In those days one of the best ways to practice penmanship was to keep a diary. Anna Winslow died of consumption (tuberculosis) at Marshfield in the fall of 1779. So she would have been around 19 when she died. What I found fascinating about the book was her descriptions of the Boston winters. It was during the Little Ice Age and the winters were extremely brutal.


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Fireblossom
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09 Sep 2019, 6:16 am

Juliette wrote:
❤️ Anne Frank, also visited her home last year... the attic she was living in before her capture, in Amsterdam.


I went there once, too! And I'll also answer Anne Frank, but I haven't read many diaries in the first place... true stories about people's lives, sure, but I don't think most of them could be called diaries.



Irulan
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11 Sep 2025, 2:29 pm

Bump!

Now I'm a big fan of The Chechen Diaries by Polina Zherebtsova as of now, I'm rereading those obsessively :) I didn't know much about the culture and history of her country until now.



CockneyRebel
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12 Sep 2025, 12:28 am

Anne Frank


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BillyTree
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12 Sep 2025, 7:11 am

The only diaries I have read are by Camus and Kafka. I didn't like any of them and thought they were very poorly written compared to their proper books.


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Irulan
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13 Sep 2025, 2:35 pm

Never before did I know that Queen Victoria's diary got translated into Polish but I finally found the translation and now I'm reading it :)



TwilightPrincess
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16 Sep 2025, 10:27 am

Anne Frank’s is my favorite.



AnonymousAnonymous
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17 Sep 2025, 3:54 pm

Anne Frank's.


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