The private life of the diary : from Pepys to tweets /

Diaries keep secrets, harbouring our fantasies and fictional histories. They are substitute boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses and friends. But in this age of social media, the role of the diary as a private confidante has been replaced by a culture of public self-disclosure. 'The Private Life of the Diary' is an elegantly-told story of the evolution - and perhaps death - of the diary. It traces its origins to 17th-century naval administrator, Samuel Pepys, and continues to 20th-century diarist Virginia Woolf, who recorded everything from her personal confessions about her irritation with her servants to her memories of Armistice Day and the solar eclipse of 1927. Sally Bayley explores how diaries can sometimes record our lives as we live them, but that we often indulge our fondness for self-dramatization, like the teenaged Sylvia Plath who proclaimed herself 'The Girl Who Would be God'.