Tag Archives: diaries

‘1940 handwritten diary / unknown female / New York’

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by in archives and sources, autobiographical, creative nonfiction

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handwritten diary

Photo: 1940 Handwritten Diary, taken by 6cats4sandi, Ebay

I stumbled upon a diary for sale on Ebay, described like this:

This is the 1940 diary of an unknown female. There are 127 days of entries. It looks like there might be enough information inside to possibly research and find out who the author might be.There are also a couple of newspaper clippings inside.The diary is in good condition,considering its age,with only a few pages darkened from age,and the clippings.

It wasn’t the only handwritten diary for sale, but the bidding for this one was more intense than others. It ended up selling for US202.50. Was it the mystery of the diarist’s identity that brought out more bidders? The quantity of entries? Or interest in that year and place?  Continue reading →

Lost diaries

04 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in archives and sources

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pepys2

The great diaries of Samuel Pepys weren’t discovered until a couple of centuries after his death. He expected them to be read one day, or at least his biographer Claire Tomalin thinks so. But they could have easily not been found and never been read. Imagine the diarist carefully recording their life, assuming they’ve preserved their days, only for them to be so terribly mistaken? The actual fate of their diaries is not the cherishment of future generations, but the moth or the flame. Continue reading →