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Description
Diary-keeping is a practice that can take many shapes and forms, not only through time but also through the methods used to create and maintain them.
Examining diaries written from the 19th to the 21st century in Britain, France, Canada, USA, India and colonial Bengal, History and the Writing of the Self analyses them as historical objects of study, explores the issues they raise for the historian, and the insights they can offer like no other historical source can.
Seeking to reclaim diaries not as a 'lesser' type of historical source, the chapters in this volume demonstrate their value and indeed historiographical necessity in fields including social history, gender history and material culture. Exploring themes such as homosexuality, political participation, collective and individual memory, identity, emotion and business, this book highlights the wealth of insights that diaries can offer into ordinary lives and private thoughts. Arguing that diaries are not specific and individual, but can enrich and contribute to historical study of group experiences, this book identifies processes at the heart of diary-keeping to understand how to employ them as historical sources.
Table of Contents
Introduction, Myriam Boussahba (Université Le Havre Normandie, France)
Part I: The Making of an Archive
1. Cinema Diaries as Historical Resources, Toni Booth and Claire Mayoh (National Science and Media Museum, UK)
2. What can I tell you? - The Value of Diaries in Archives, Victoria Oxberry (Durham County Record Office, UK)
3. “To explore the past as I live my present”: The Diary of Phyllis Willmott, Sophie Bridges (Churchill Archives Cambridge, UK)
4. Chalet Tales: Changing Times in Alpine Study Diaries of Three Oxford Colleges', Victoria Stevens (Library & Archive Conservation & Preservation Ltd, UK)
Part II: Legitimising Diaries as Historical Sources
5. The Paths of Memory and History, Denis Peschanski (Paris-Sorbonne, EHESS and CNRS, France)
6. Diaries as Records of Everyday Mobility: Examples from Unpublished Personal Diaries in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century Britain, Colin G. Pooley and Marilyn E. Pooley (Lancaster University, UK)
7. Reconsidering a Genealogy of Diary Writing in Canada, Kathryn Carter (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada)
Part III: Life Experience of Diaries
8. When do notebooks become a diary? The Example of Michael Faraday, Frank A. J. L. James (University College London, UK)
9. Viscountess Esher's First World War Scrapbook Diaries, Cherish Watton (University of Cambridge, UK)
10. The Bachellery Family Diaries (1835-1851): Pedagogy, Politics and Practices, Rebecca Rogers (Université de Paris, France)
11. The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimké: The Politics of Diary Writing, Delphine Louis-Dimitrov (Institut Catholique de Paris, France)
Part IV: Keeping and Making Diaries: The un/expected Show of Private Selves
12. The Journals of Honoria Lawrence (1837-1854): Between Domesticity and Travelling, the Adventures of a British Woman in India, Angelina Giret (Université Le Havre Normandie, France)
13. Making Sense and Use of Lord Shaftesbury's Diary, David Brown (University of Southampton, UK)
14. Diaries as a Source of Intimate History in Colonial Bengal, Arpana Bandyopadhyay (Diamond Harbour Women's University, West Bengal, India)
15. Diaries and Male Homosexuality: A Confidential Matter?, Jerome Ordono (Université Le Havre Normandie, France)
Bibliography
Product details
| Published | Apr 02 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 256 |
| ISBN | 9781350426856 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 10 bw illus |
| Dimensions | 9 x 6 inches |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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