'Whom do I tell when I tell the blank page?' Virginia Woolf asked her own diary. The question has never seemed more pertinent. Be they fearless, candid, naive or exhibitionistic, personal bloggers now occupy an extraordinary position, projecting their inmost lives to all those with an internet connection. Yet this is merely the most recent mutation of a unique - and still often misunderstood - literary form. Award-winning author and expert in the field Alexandra Johnson traces the diary's quirky and compelling history through centuries of writing for and about one's self. Where the earliest of pilgrims and explorers kept journals of their findings, scientists including Darwin used them to develop their theories. Meanwhile, writers from Tolstoy to Woolf to Lessing mined diaries for their creative work, and historical and political diaries - most famously, of course, that of Anne Frank - illuminate what diaries do best: enable a movement inwards so that the troubled mind can find a way outwards. At a time when journals are staking their territory on the blogosphere, this is a timely consideration of the diary's origins and its long history.

Author Biography

Alexandra Johnson is the author of Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal and The Hidden Writer, for which she won a PEN award. She has taught creative non-fiction at Harvard and Wellesley.