The diary is that most intimate of journals, of records. Within its pages the writer records and gives expression to their thoughts, their feelings, their emotional state on all the things that make up and surround them in this world. For most people the diary is a way to record the milestones of life; a birthday, a new love, the passing of someone as well as the minutiae of everyday life that seems worth passing into written memory. It may be a daily task, or an occasional flurry of words whenever it’s deemed necessary yet, apart from politicians and celebrities, these pages are never really shared. The truth they hold is personal to the writer, and others are not privy to its contents. With authors of the calibre of Bulgakov, Woolf, Tolstoy, Twain and many others this volume explores characters who lives seemed dominated by these diaries, and the events that unfold are both compelling and literary journeys into the very personal and intimate side of their characters’ lives.