New this month from the University of Nebraska Press: The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1872-1876.
Henry James was a prolific letter writer, and the University of Nebraska press is publishing the thousands and thousands of letters he wrote in an ongoing series. Volume No. 3 is a collection of letters written between 1872 and 1876, and the letters from those years fill more than 500 pages. Imagine if Henry James had had access to text messaging!
Today’s linking in Lincoln is all about a cousin of the letter, the diary, and diary’s kid sister, blog. Ready?
1. In 1660, a member of the British Parliament named Samuel Pepys began keeping a detailed diary. Its publication, more than 200 years later, was notable in that it was the first private diary released to the masses. Today, it’s available online, and you can read a daily entry here.
2. The Diary Junction Blog is a blog devoted entirely to diaries in the news. And, yes, there are lots of excerpts. Visit the blog here.
3. If you kept an angsty and/or embarrassing teenage diary and have a secret desire to read it on stage, you may be in luck. Mortified is a live show, a book, and, occasionally, a radio show, which allows relatively normal, well-adjusted adults to relive their less well-adjusted pasts. Learn more here.
4. In 1994, a Swarthmore student named Justin Hall started keeping an online diary called Justin’s Links from the Underground. Though he didn’t call his online diary a blog, he has been credited as the founding father of blogging. Visit his web site here.
5. And if you want to keep your own diary (or blog) but don’t know where to start, 124 Diary can help you get started.
Are you ready to begin your own blog now? Or perhaps you’d rather stick to more traditional media like diaries and letters. If you’re a letter writer, (or a James enthusiast), be sure to read The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1872-1876. See you next week!
I hadn't heard about most of these... getting this bit of history is really interesting!
Probably the most intriguing, loosely diary-related site that comes to mind for me is PostSecret. The idea is that you can write a secret on a postcard and mail it anonymously to an address where it is then made public for anyone and everyone to see.
Sometimes these secrets are funny, sometimes sad, even occasionally disturbing. But they're so compelling because each one is a snapshot into the life of a real person - the man who lives down the street, the checker at the grocery store... Cool stuff.
Posted by: Aaron | January 22, 2009 at 11:36 PM