The diaries
By: William Allingham ; edited by H. Allingham and D. Radford ; introduction by John Julius Norwich
Publisher: Folio Society
Published: 1990
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 351
Subjects: Diaries; Irish Poets
Description: "William Allingham was acquainted with almost every major cultural figure of the 19th century: Ruskin, Browning, Thackeray, George Eliot, Carlyle, Darwin, Holman Hunt, Hans Christian Andersen and William Morris amongst others. Chief of his many literary and artistic friends, however, was Tennyson and nothing gives such an intimate, respectful and humorous portrait of the great poet as the numerous anecdotes recorded in Allingham's Diaries. It is a monument to friendship, filled with entertaining and touching details and clearly capturing the voices of the people he knew. 'One's first glass of wine of the day is a great event, ' Thackeray tells Allingham at dinner, while Tennyson, having just finished a poem, asks, 'would it disgust you if I read "Maud"? Would you expire?'

Allingham was well respected for his poetry in his day, even receiving a Civil List pension and no less a critic than Ivan Turgenev claimed that he had 'never understood Ireland' until he read Allingham's epic Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland. Although his poetry is almost forgotten, his Diaries are another matter, bringing not only Victorian literary life to the reader but the whole of the 19th-century world, from rural poverty to industrial bustle. This Folio edition is illustrated with portraits by the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. A friend of Allingham's, she appears frequently in the diaries, often as the good-humoured subject of his teasing: ' "I want to do a large photograph of Tennyson and he objects! Says I make bags under his eyes - and Carlyle refuses to give me a sitting, he says it's a kind of Inferno"' In fact, both sat for her, and their portraits, as well of those of many other of Allingham's friends, provide the perfect accompaniment to the Diaries.

It is not hard to see what attracted so many great luminaries to Allingham for his personality and flair for description shine through the diaries - charming, interested in everyone and with a kindly eye that saw the best in them. 'Plenty of friends and talks today' Allingham records happily, and to read the diaries is to become one of his friends, taking pleasure in his excellent company."--Pub. description.
Notes: Includes index.