The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “diaries”

Young Hans Christian Andersen’s Breathtaking Account of Climbing Mount Vesuvius During an Eruption
Young Hans Christian Andersen’s Breathtaking Account of Climbing Mount Vesuvius During an Eruption

“The sea raised its great wings, coal black smoke arose from Vesuvius into the blue sky…”

read article

William S. Burroughs on Creativity
William S. Burroughs on Creativity

“The price an artist pays for doing what he wants is that he has to do it.”

read article

George Orwell’s Dessert Recipes
George Orwell’s Dessert Recipes

Sugar and spice and a respite of nice amidst hardship.

read article

Party Like It’s 1903: Virginia Woolf on the Ecstasy of Music and Dance
Party Like It’s 1903: Virginia Woolf on the Ecstasy of Music and Dance

“Dance music… stirs some barbaric instinct — lulled asleep in our sober lives — you forget centuries of civilization in a second.”

read article

Teenage Virginia Woolf on the Human Mind
Teenage Virginia Woolf on the Human Mind

“Activity of mind … is the only thing that keeps one’s life going.”

read article

Anaïs Nin on Love and Life, Illustrated
Anaïs Nin on Love and Life, Illustrated

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

read article

Virginia Woolf Visits Stonehenge
Virginia Woolf Visits Stonehenge

“The singular & intoxicating charm of Stonehenge … is that no one in the world can tell you anything about it.”

read article

The Thoughtbook of F. Scott Fitzgerald: An Endearing Record of His First Loves from His Secret Boyhood Diary
The Thoughtbook of F. Scott Fitzgerald: An Endearing Record of His First Loves from His Secret Boyhood Diary

A lesson on self-awareness without self-consciousness.

read article

Henry James on Memory, Growing Older, and What Happiness Really Means
Henry James on Memory, Growing Older, and What Happiness Really Means

“I have led too serious a life; but that perhaps, after all, preserves one’s youth.”

read article

Hans Christian Andersen’s Little-Known Sketches: The Beloved Storyteller’s Illustrated Travelogue of Europe
Hans Christian Andersen’s Little-Known Sketches: The Beloved Storyteller’s Illustrated Travelogue of Europe

What made Andersen particularly enchanting was his singular gift for noticing and depicting not only the whimsical, but also the wistful.

read article

View Full Site

The Marginalian participates in the Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate programs, designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to books. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book from a link here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)