Beyond Words: 200 Years of Illustrated Diaries - Susan Snyder
“Brilliantly selected and arranged, visually as well as intellectually striking, this gathering of diaries of mostly little-known Americans brings us into abrupt, startling, and poignant intimacy with the wonderfully diverse diarists.” Joyce Carol Oates
This Oprah Book Pick is a collection of excerpts from fifty illustrated diaries spanning two hundred years of adventure and contemplation. Gleaned from Snyder’s explorations of the Bancroft Library as head of public services, they range from the records of eighteenth-century Spanish explorer Pedro Font to those of David Brower first encountering the wilderness to the Beat poet revelations. These unfolding stories reveal as much about the time in which they were written as they do the diarists’ particular inner worlds. Whether filled with chicken-scratch sketches or gilded illuminations, these diaries have become objets d’art that expand our understanding of the uniquely compelling experiences of their creators.
Photo right from Diary of John Muir
An inveterate diarist and boon companion to Dear Dog Endymion, Susan Snyder worked as a teacher, illustrator and Japanese language interpreter before becoming head of public service at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has spent twenty years exploring the library’s stacks, attics, and moats.