Kilvert's Diary, 1870-79 (Penguin)

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Two days later he and a friend are earnestly discussing whether or not he should marry her and getting all excited about what a good idea it all is.

It's the weird thing where sexual attraction gets mostly sublimated into waxing lyrical about rosy cheeks and angels, which, because there's nothing in it that's specific to the qualities of adult women, gets lavished on little girls too, even though to our eyes it seems so clearly sexual. Kilvert has touched and delighted (and mildly shocked) readers of his diaries ever since they were first published. I found this book/diary incredibly interesting, it helped that I knew many of the areas spoken about around Clyro and Bredwardine.While he generally comes off as a pretty sympathetic narrator, he often walks the line between a romantic appreciation of feminine beauty and being kind of a creeper. This new edition of William Plomer’s original selection contains new archival material as well as a fascinating introduction illuminating Kilvert’s world and the history of the diaries. The first entry in the published version starts on 18 January, so we do not know if he gave a reason for starting to keep a diary on that particular date.

Heywood's yacht the Mistletoe in Stokes Bay with a loss of three lives, the master, the mate and Miss Annie Peel, the sister of Mrs.One of the bearers on the right side was very short, so short that he could not properly support the coffin level. The thing I enjoyed most about this though was its history from someone who was actually alive at the time. I fear those grey old men of Moccas, those grey gnarled, low-browed, knock-kneed, bowed, bent, huge, strange, long-armed, deformed, hunch-backed, misshapen oak men that stand waiting century after century” -this is how he describes the old oak trees, I’m glad to say they are still there! FK seems to be a fascinating person, one that you would like to meet until you realise that he died 139 years ago.

and later a one-volume selection Kilvert's Diary, 1870–1879 (Jonathan Cape, 1944—corrected in 1960, and with an abridged and illustrated version for children published as Ardizzone's Kilvert in 1976).The third notebook was given to a Mr Harvey from Birmingham who had corresponded with her for some time.