Remarkable Diaries

Travel back in time and witness both everyday life and great moments in history in this fascinating compilation of diaries through the ages.

Bringing together historical and literary diaries, artists’ sketchbooks, explorers’ journals, and scientists’ notebooks, Remarkable Diaries provides an intimate insight into the lives and thoughts of some of the most interesting people of the last two thousand years. Discover what it was like to build a pyramid, sail the seas with Magellan, travel into the heart of Africa, or serve on the Western Front. Find out how writers and artists planned their masterpieces, and how scientists developed their groundbreaking theories.

Arranged chronologically, Remarkable Diaries takes you into the pages of the world’s greatest diaries, notebooks, and letters, including those of Samuel Pepys, Henry-David Thoreau, the Goncourt brothers, Virginia Woolf, and Anne Frank. Stunning reproductions of the original notebooks and manuscripts are complemented by extracts and quotations, and illustrated features set the diaries in their cultural and historical context.

Essential reading for everyone who is passionate about history and literature, Remarkable Diaries provides a fascinating insight into the everyday lives, thoughts, and feelings of men and women through the centuries.

Author Biography

Professor Kate Williams is an author, historian, and broadcaster. She has written five history books, including England’s Mistress and Rival Queens, and four historical novels. She is a regular on television and radio, presenting her own shows including The Stuarts, Inside Versailles, and Restoration Home, and discussing social history, royal history, and politics, and culture on shows such as Newsnight. CNN’s royal historian, she is a Professor of History at the University of Reading and gives lectures across the world.