Orwell’s Diaries

Another new blog that might bear watching is The Orwell Prize. As with Pepys Diary, this blog will make a daily transcription from Orwell’s journals. The personal diary began on August 9, 1938; the political began on September 7.

On August 11, 1938, George Orwell wrote:

This morning all surfaces, even indoors, damp as a result of mist. A curious deposit all over my snuff-box, evidently residue of moisture acting on lacquer.

Very hot, but rain in afternoon.

Samuel Pepys, who has gotten into the plaque years, wrote this on August 10, 1665:

By and by to the office, where we sat all the morning; in great trouble to see the Bill this week rise so high, to above 4,000 in all, and of them above 3,000 of the plague. And an odd story of Alderman Bence�s stumbling at night over a dead corps in the streete, and going home and telling his wife, she at the fright, being with child, fell sicke and died of the plague. . . . Thence to the office and, after writing letters, home, to draw- over anew my will, which I had bound myself by oath to dispatch by to-morrow night; the town growing so unhealthy, that a man cannot depend upon living two days to an end. So having done something of it, I to bed.