The Faber book of diaries

By Simon Brett

Book Overview

This book presents a selection of the best of four centuries of British diaries, resulting in a kaleidoscope of English life in all its variety. 1400 entries, taken from over 100 diaries, speak of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571138063
• ISBN13: 9780571138067
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 498 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 1.0" x 1.0"

Customer Reviews

Bits of British daily life To be tasted but not chewed and digested

This collection of diaries works on the calendar principle.For each day of the year a few selections are made. This technique has in my opinion more disadvantages than advantages. It means that there is no essential connection or continuity between the diary entries. Each is an individual piece to be tasted and tested. This is in short the kind of book one reads a little here, and a little there. Another disadvantage is that the diaries are almost exclusively British in source. This does not mean that there are not interesting pieces here. Gissing saying that after ten years in London there is not a house in which he is welcome, lamenting his own loneliness- is an interesting entry. A friend of Browning meeting him a day after Carlyle's funeral and Browning telling of a sick- visit and Carlyle's expressing his wish to die. There are many small interesting pieces but on the whole this is in my opinion, not the way a diary collection should be comprised.