Tristine Rainer Popular Books

Tristine Rainer Biography & Facts

A diary is a written or audiovisual memorabilic record, with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digital. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, thoughts, and/or feelings, excluding comments on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone who keeps a diary is known as a diarist. Diaries undertaken for institutional purposes play a role in many aspects of human civilization, including government records (e.g. Hansard), business ledgers, and military records. In British English, the word may also denote a preprinted journal format. Today the term is generally employed for personal diaries, normally intended to remain private or to have a limited circulation amongst friends or relatives. The word "journal" may be sometimes used for "diary," but generally a diary has (or intends to have) daily entries (from the Latin word for 'day'), whereas journal-writing can be less frequent. Although a diary may provide information for a memoir, autobiography or biography, it is generally written not with the intention of being published as it stands, but for the author's own use. In recent years, however, there is internal evidence in some diaries (e.g. those of Ned Rorem, Alan Clark, Tony Benn or Simon Gray) that they are written with eventual publication in mind, with the intention of self-vindication (pre- or posthumous), or simply for profit. By extension, the term diary is also used to mean a printed publication of a written diary; and may also refer to other terms of journal including electronic formats (e.g. blogs). Etymology The word 'diary' comes from the Latin diarium ("daily allowance," from dies, "day"). The word 'journal' comes from the same root (diurnus, "of the day") through the Old French jurnal (the modern French for 'day' being jour). The earliest recorded use of the word 'diary' to refer to a book in which a daily record was written was in Ben Jonson's comedy Volpone in 1605. History The earliest known book resembling a diary is the Diary of Merer, an ancient Egyptian logbook whose author described the transportation of limestone from Tura to Giza, likely to clad the outside of the Great Pyramid. The oldest extant diaries come from Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures, although the even earlier work To Myself (Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν), today known as the Meditations, written in Greek by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the second half of the 2nd century AD, already displays many characteristics of a diary. Pillowbooks of Japanese court ladies and Asian travel journals offer some aspects of this genre of writing, although they rarely consist exclusively of diurnal records. In the medieval Near East, Arabic diaries were written from before the 10th century. The earliest surviving diary of this era which most resembles the modern diary was that of Abu Ali ibn al-Banna in the 11th century. His diary is the earliest known to be arranged in order of date (ta'rikh in Arabic), very much like modern diaries. The precursors of the diary in the modern sense include daily notes of medieval mystics, concerned mostly with inward emotions and outward events perceived as spiritually important (e.g. Elizabeth of Schönau, Agnes Blannbekin, and perhaps also, in the lost vernacular account of her visions, Beatrice of Nazareth). From the Renaissance on, some individuals wanted not only to record events, as in medieval chronicles and itineraries, but also to put down their own opinions and express their hopes and fears, without any intention to publish these notes. One of the early preserved examples is the anonymous Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris covering the years 1405–1449, giving subjective commentaries on current events. Famous 14th to 16th century Renaissance examples, which appeared much later as books, were the diaries by the Florentines Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati and the Venetian Marino Sanuto the Younger. These diaries include records of even less important everyday occurrences together with much reflection, emotional experience and personal impressions. In 1908, the Smythson company created the first featherweight diary, enabling diaries to be carried about. Published diaries Many diaries of notable figures have been published and form an important element of autobiographical literature. Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) is the earliest diarist who is well known today; his diaries, preserved in Magdalene College, Cambridge, were first transcribed and published in 1825. Pepys was amongst the first who took the diary beyond mere business transaction notation, into the realm of the personal. Pepys' contemporary John Evelyn also kept a notable diary, and their works are among the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period, and consist of eyewitness accounts of many great events, such as the Great Plague of London, and the Great Fire of London. The practice of posthumous publication of diaries of literary and other notables began in the 19th century. As examples, the Grasmere Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855) was published in 1897; the journals of Fanny Burney (1752–1840) were published in 1889; the diaries of Henry Crabb Robinson (1776–1867) were published in 1869. Among important U.S. Civil War diaries are those of George Templeton Strong, a New York City lawyer, and Mary Chesnut, the wife of a Confederate officer. The diary of Jemima Condict, living in the area of what is now West Orange, New Jersey, includes local observations of the American Revolutionary War. Since the 19th century the publication of diaries by their authors has become commonplace – notably amongst politicians seeking justification but also amongst artists and litterateurs of all descriptions. Amongst late 20th-century British published political diaries, those of Richard Crossman, Tony Benn and Alan Clark are representative, the latter being more indiscreet, in the tradition of the diaries of Chips Channon. In Britain in the field of the arts notable diaries were published by James Lees-Milne, Roy Strong and Peter Hall. Harold Nicolson in the mid-20th century covered both politics and the arts. One of the most famous modern diaries, widely read and translated, is the posthumously published The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, who wrote it while in hiding during the German occupation of Amsterdam in the 1940s. Otto Frank edited his daughter's diary and arranged for its publication after the war. Many edits were made before the diary was published in other countries. This was due to sexually explicit material, which also led to some libraries banning the book. The writing of diaries was also often practiced from the 20th century onwards as a conscious act of self-exploration (of greater or lesser sincerity) – examples being the diaries of Carl Jung, Aleister Crowley and Anaïs Nin. Among important dia.... Discover the Tristine Rainer popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Tristine Rainer books.