Diary

Knowledge, Information and Experience

Diaries, the from the Latin word dies for ‘day’, are records of daily life and opinions organized by date. The art of diary-keeping became popular in the 18th century, and the peak reached its pinnacle during the Victorian era.

The First Diaries:

People have been creating daily records for business purposes for hundreds of years, but the concept of a diary in which the writer also records their thoughts took longer to develop.

One of the earliest examples of a diary belongs to Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor who lived in 2nd century AD. Other early diaries come from Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures.

For example in China, Lio Ao, a scholar who lived in the 9th century, kept a travel diary. In the 11th century, Ahmed Ibn Banna kept a diary about his travels in Northern Europe, arranged by date like modern diaries.

In the Medieval era, diaries were used by mystics to record spiritual interpretations of daily events.

Rise in Popularity:

Until the 18th century, most diaries were kept by men and were usually just daily notes about business or farming. Others kept spiritual diaries of sorts, in which they counted their blessings and confessed their sins. As literacy rates rose, the cost of paper dropped, and people became more aware of the self, diarising became more popular in the 18th century.

Diaries were far more popular with women than with men, and diarising was often considered by men to be silly and frivolous. This view by no means stopped diarists from writing. Diarising has continued to be a popular past time, and diaries have offered historians invaluable information regarding first hand accounts of historical and events and the day-to-day minutiae of everyday life.

Famous Diaries:

Anne Frank: Perhaps the most famous diary is Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, published posthumously in 1947.

Samuel Pepys: Samuel Pepys’s diaries, written in the 17th century, are perhaps the earliest examples of diaries that are still widely read today.

Charles Darwin: Charles Darwin began keeping a diary at age 29, and continued diarising until his death in 1881. His most famous diary records his research notes while aboard the H.M.S. Beagle and exploring the Galapagos Islands – the trip which inspired his Theory of Evolution.

Marie Curie: Nobel prize-winning chemist and physicist kept a diary of her research with radioactive materials. To this day, her diaries are still so radioactive that they are stored in a lead box. 

Mark Twain: From the age of 19, Mark Twain kept a detailed diary of his daily life and observations.

Digital Diaries and Blogging: Since the rise of the Internet, more diarists have been switching to recording their diaries online. The first online diary was written between 1994 and 1996 by Claudio Pinhanez.