Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
It surprises me somewhat the extent to which diaries are priced according to
the importance or, not necessarily the same thing - famousness of the
writer. They look good in a catalogue, but often are disappointingly dull.
The category of very interesting diaries kept by unknown, or almost so,
writers, can be far cheaper.
A case in point is a late Hanoverian diary I recently transcribed, that of
Thomas Tancred at Merton College, Oxford, in 1834-5. Not of any great
interest himself (he later emigrated, became a landowner, minor baronet, and
author), and having a better known brother; it is the intimate references to
his lecturers and fellow-students that make it readable.Edward Denison,
William Buckland,William Gladstone, Walter Hamilton, John Keble, Newman
(later Cardinal), Edward Pusey and the Duke of Wellington. It sheds new
light on the canvassing for Chancellorship, geological thought, and the
emergence of the Oxford Movement.
All this is obvious, perhaps, yet something that future librarians are going
to find it hard to understand - that a minor item from say a presidential
library wasn't seen to be perhaps worth a lot less than some obscure diarist
recording events that no-one else bothered to, because they didn't see the
future potential. In the past, diarists have been evaluated more on their
position in biographies than the contents of their diaries, many of which
have remained unread since they were written.