Diaries, letters and journals

Personal as well as political, Orwell's letters offer a fascinating window into the mind of a phenomenal man.

'What matters is to live everything.

Edinburgh-born James Boswell, at twenty-two, kept a daily diary of his eventful second stay in London from 1762 to 1763.

One of the revelations of William Shawcross's official biography of the Queen Mother was her private correspondence.

From the private papers of Mark Twain and Mozart to those of Robert Browning and Nelson, Love Letters of Great Men collects together some of the most romantic letters in history.

An extraordinary selection of the letters of Che Guevara'Always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world'Che Guevara was an inveterate letter writer and diarist throughout his short but extraordinary life.

'A Latin American James Dean or Jack Kerouac' Washington Post'It's true; Marxists just wanna have fun.

'Guevara was a figure of epic proportions.

Beginning as surprisingly formal notes from the road to his friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the letters gradually deepen in substance and style.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is universally celebrated as one of the greatest artists of all time, yet iconic Renaissance creator was also a prolific and gifted poet.

Poet, visionary, short-story writer and autobiographer, G rard de Nerval (1808-1855) explored the uncertain borderlines between dream and reality, irony and madness, autobiography and fiction with his groundbreaking writings.

As well as being the most celebrated diarist of all time, Samuel Pepys was also a hearty drinker, eater and connoisseur of epicurean delights, who indulged in every pleasure seventeenth-century London had to offer.

One of the world's greatest correspondents, Madame de S vign (1626-96) paints an extraordinarily vivid picture of France at the time of Louis XIV, in eloquent letters written throughout her life to family and friends.

The greatest orator in Roman history, Marcus Tullius Cicero remained one of the republic's chief supporters throughout his life, guided by profound political beliefs that illuminated his correspondence with both close friends and powerful aristocrats.

At the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering and the nature of advice itself; these profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for writers and artists of all kinds.

Giacomo Leopardi was the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and was recognized by readers from Nietzsche to Beckett as one of the towering literary figures in Italian history.

Rachel Johnson takes on the challenge of saving The Lady, Britain's oldest women's weekly, in her hilarious diary, A Diary of The Lady: My First Year and a Half as Editor.

Benedictine nun, poet and musician, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages.

Published to coincide with the release of the film Bright Star, written and directed by Oscar Winner Jane Campion (The Piano, In the Cut), starring Abbie Cornish (Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and Ben Whishaw (Brideshead Revisited, Perfume)John Keats died aged just twenty-five.

1910.

'I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination' - Keats, in a letter to his friend Benjamin Bailey in November 1817.

A continuous text made up of extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal and a selection of her brother's poems.

GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014No marriage of a major twentieth-century writer lasted longer than Vladimir Nabokov's.

One of Germany's greatest poets, Johann Christian Friedrich H lderlin (1770-1843) was also a prose writer of intense feeling, intelligence and perception.

The Second World War was the first truly global conflict and sixty years on its consequences continue to shape the modern world.

'In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself'Intimate, vulnerable and unsparing, Reborn bears witness to the evolution of Susan Sontag.

A phenomenonally precicious schoolboy, Rimbaud was still a teenager when he became notorious as Europe's most shocking and exhilarating poet.

Cook led three famous expeditions to the Pacific Ocean between 1768 and 1779.

George Orwell was an inveterate keeper of diaries.

A Moment of War is the magnificent conclusion to Laurie Lee s autobiographical trilogy begun in Cider with Rosie and As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning .

Will They Ever Trust Us Again?

A new selection of Vincent Van Gough's letters, based on an entirely new translation, revealing his religious struggles, his fascination with the French Revolution, his search for love and his involvement in humanitarian causes.

This collection of letters forms a fascinating day-by-day account of Steinbeck's writing of EAST OF EDEN, his longest and most ambitious novel.

Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck was a prolific correspondent.

A prominent lawyer and administrator, Pliny (c.

The story of Abelard and Heloise remains one of the world's most celebrated and tragic love affairs.

Illuminating writings by Stoicism's most eloquent advocate, now with a new introduction'It is philosophy that has the duty of protecting us.

A major writer and a leading figure in the public life of Rome, Seneca (c.

After a period of forced exile and solitary wandering brought about by his radical views on religion and politics, Jean-Jacques Rousseau returned to Paris in 1770.

The Diary recorded by Lady Murasaki (c.

A new translation of the idiosyncratic diary of a C10 court lady in Heian Japan.

Just after the iron curtain fell on Eastern Europe John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer, Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the New York Herald Tribune.

Drawn from journals, this book is an account of a woman's sexual awakening, covering a single momentous year - 1931-32, in Paris, when June fell in love with Henry Miller, undermining her own idealized marriage.

Book by Samuel Johnson, published in 1775.

William Burroughs closed his classic debut novel, Junky, by saying he had determined to search out a drug he called 'Yage' which he believed transmitted telepathic powers, a drug that could be 'the final fix'.

A selection of Mozart's letters, translated into English, complete with notes, linking commentary and chronology.

Novelist, playwright and barrister John Mortimer has led an extraordinarily rich life, privately and professionally, much of it in the public eye.

In the 1920s, the young J.

'With one's face in the wind you were almost burned with a shower of Firedrops'A selection from Pepys' startlingly vivid and candid diary, including his famous account of the Great FireIntroducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday.

'They wanted me to give a concert; I wanted them to beg me.