Product Description

This is an anthology of some of the world's greatest diarists, with over 200 wide-ranging, international contributions. It is laid out day-by-day and a typical date might feature entries from such distinctly different writers as Andy Warhol, Kafka, Pepys and Goebbels.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #419207 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
"I always say, keep a diary and someday it'll keep you", quipped Mae West, an insight that is wonderfully borne out in Irene and Alan Taylor's The Assassin's Cloak, an anthology of the world's greatest diarists. All of life can be found in this extraordinary compilation of diary entries by 170 of history's most famous (and infamous) diarists, beginning with "the Shakespeare of diarists", Samuel Pepys, and ending with the likes of the more notorious recent diarists, Roy Strong and Alan Clarke. The editors have cleverly arranged the book like a diary--there are entries for every day of the year, leading to fascinating juxtapositions, such as the thoughts of Leo Tolstoy, Queen Victoria and Josef Goebbels on three very different days in April. The selections are wonderfully judged, as they move from the momentous and the revealing--Noel Coward admitting "Gandhi has been assassinated. In my humble opinion, a bloody good thing but far too late"--to the banal and the downright bizarre--Wilhelm Reich claiming "I yearn for a beautiful woman with no sexual anxieties who will just take me! Have inhaled too much orgone radiation". Prepare to be shocked by the comments of those famous diarists you know, and intrigued by those you have never heard of (helpfully covered by short biographies at the end of the book), but more than anything be captivated by the sheer lust for life in all its detail reflected in a book that is clearly a long and arduous labour of love on the part of its authors. The sheer wealth of fascinating material in The Assassin's Cloak is overwhelming, and should be sampled day by day--rather like a diary. --Jerry Brotton

Review
"The Assassin's Cloak gathers brief and often wonderful entries by poets and philosophers, businessmen and barons for each day of the year....This book is for the expert and the dilettante, for the coffee table and the reference shalf."

From the Back Cover
"The content is sensational - for all the right reasons. It is stimulating and charming in equal measure, often amusing, and an endless source of pleasure ... This anthology is full of old favourites and new additions to the canon." Literary Review

"These voices speak with remarkable immediacy and clarity. Irene and Alan Taylor have been assiduous, resourceful and not infrequently inspired in their selection ... a fascinating book." Scotland on Sunday

"an exceptionally good anthology ... Dip in anywhere, any time. More often than not you will be lucky with your choice." The Scotsman

"Here, in the intricacies of life as it is shared with silent notebooks in all its flavours we learn a million truths and want to go on learning more. Some truths are little, some huge, but all of them compelling, for one of the joys of this intensely readable book is that the commonplace can seem as crucial to life and its truths as the earthshaking. The sublime and the ridiculous for once co-exist rather marvellously, letting us take insight from the mundane, or the momentous or simply from unique moments in time ... A labour of love which will sit as happily in the bathroom as in the reference shelf: a fine and delightful book." The Observer

"Not the least of The Assassin's Cloak's many satisfactions is the chance to slot one's own activities into the patterns of bygone time ... Such is the care lavished on the material that what emerges is not simply a single, chronological progress but a series of interior narratives capable of throwing unexpected detours and surprises along the way ... The Taylors specialise in the canny juxtaposition ... they seemed to have packed in practically everyone one had ever heard of, as well as a number of promising names." Times Literary Supplement

"A sumptuous feast. This inspired anthology of diverse diary entries, selected chiefly for their honesty, is relentlessly thought-provoking." Charlotte Cory, The Independent (Books of the Year)

"utterly compulsive, thanks, in part, to the excellent editing and the way in which they have allowed the commonplace to co-exist with the sage, the hackneyed with the gnostic. Its cumulative effect is surprisingly moving. You come away from this marvellous anthology thinking that anyone who keeps a diary is just trying to mark their own place in time." The Times

"as thorough and wide-ranging as could be, with snippets from Pepys to Clark, from Wesley to Warhol" London Review of Books

"splendid ... The editors greatest triumph is not merely that they have succeeded in corralling into one fat volume 170 great diarists, famous and obscure but that the extracts they have chosen are, whether describing the great events of history or some domestic triviality, absolutely fascinating ... For me this is the anthology of the year and one that will have pride of place on my bedside table for years to come." Daily Mail

Customer Reviews

A book to treasure
This book is a wonderful and quite novel idea. Instead of being split up into themes and categories, this collection reads like a normal diary (ie. January 1st to December 31st). It features famous diary writers like Samuel Pepys, Andy Warhol and Victor Klemperer but also introduced me to some people I'd not heard of before. What impressed me about this collection was the small details, the everyday things that many diary keepers consider too mundane to note, but it is in these details that we find real life. This is a book to read and re-read every now and again. Truly a book to treasure.

A daily treat
Of the around 170 diarists quoted in this anthology, one, James Lee-Milne, writes "If a man has no constant lover who shares his soul as well as his body he must have a diary - a poor substitute but better than nothing". Whatever compelled these people, rich or poor, famous or obscure, to jot down their thoughts and feelings, and record the events that made up their daily existence, we are given a glimpse here of their own, very different lives. As well as between five and ten daily extracts from diarists, there are brief biographies which I found very useful for placing the diary into a context. I have already marked a few I would like to follow up and read more of - surprisingly Byron being one, and one more obscure, William Souter who was bedridden and paralysed from 1930 onwards. He wistfully records watching the servant women outside hanging up the washing,and wondering if anyone would want to marry him. I also liked the fact I could cheat by looking up all the dates for one particular diarist and reading them all ahead...I am trying to strictly ration myself to only read the date I am actually on, but find it very hard not to get ahead of myself.

There is a giddy kaleidoscope of human life from tragedy, financial ruin, philosophical musings, guilty regrets, political observations, the worlds of religion, art, music, literature, to POW camps and concentration camps.

On the 7th February 1856 Tolstoy "quarrelled with Turgenev, and had a wench at my place". On the 31st January 1987 it is recorded that Enoch Powell was asked by his hairdresser how he would like his hair cut - "in silence" was the terse reply. Chips Channon, on 10th January 1946, remarks to Emerald Cunard at a wedding how life has returned to normal, pointing to the crowd and observing "after all, this is what we have been fighting for." "What,", replied she, "are they all Poles?"

I feel that I am going to have to read the whole book through again next year as there is too much distilled living here to absorb in one sitting.

Standard of diary keeping isn't what it used to be!
Peeking into strangers front rooms to see how they live is nothing compared to the illicit pleasure of the thought of opening their diaries. I read the excerpts in their daily portions initially with relish, but surprisingly, by September my interest was waning. Perhaps the access was too legitimate, but I just found a great many of the entries perplexing without context (there are tiny biographies included) or downright boring. I began to get diary fatigue and ended up with a complete lack of interest in other people's lives! Which is a shame because some of the entries are genuinely illuminating.