Quite apart from his dismal love life, there is a strain of melancholy running through the diary. He records mysterious illnesses –‘face ache’ features quite often, for example – and has some terrifying dreams, which might be indicative of depression or worse. For example, on October 14 th 1872 he records ‘a strange and horrible dream’, or more exactly a dream within a dream, in which the Reverend Venables (the vicar with whom Kilvert lodged and who was effectively his boss) tried to murder him, and he in return tried to murder Venables: The notebooks were then returned to Essex Hope. Plomer called to see her some time in 1954 and she told him that she had to go into a home and leave her house. She had therefore cleared out a lot of papers and had destroyed the notebooks as they contained private family matters. He recalled he could have strangled her with his bare hands. But she later produced one of the notebooks and gave it to him. It was the Cornish Holiday. Howells, Anita (13 June 2001). "Kilvert and a sad love affair". Hereford Times . Retrieved 24 October 2017.

Several modern writers have commented on passages in the diaries describing interactions with young girls which these days might raise suspicions of paedophilia. [7] [8] [9] However, poet John Betjeman was among those who have since defended Kilvert, saying, "If there had been anything sinister in his attentions to them, he would hardly have written so candidly in his diary about his feelings". [ citation needed] Modern adaptations [ edit ] The complete text, from the first entry in January 1870, written when Kilvert was curate at Clyro in Radnorshire, to the final one in March 1879, by which time he was the incumbent of Bredwardine in Herefordshire, came to well over a million words. Plomer decided to winnow it by about two thirds. "It simply creates that really unknown and remote period," he enthused to Elizabeth Bowen as he began work, drawing lines in red crayon beside paragraphs which were to be omitted. "I showed a bit of it to Virginia [Woolf]: she was most excited. I have insisted on editing it for myself . . . But it's going to be a great deal of work, especially for some poor typist, who will probably be driven blind and mad." In particular, Woolf applauded the comic perfection of the scene at Kilvert's cousin Maria's funeral in Worcester cathedral where, in a sequence of brilliant descriptive strokes, the pallbearers are depicted staggering under the weight of the "crushingly heavy" coffin, which threatens at times to topple over and kill or maim them. very charming. I had no idea the late Victorians played such wild games of croquet (up to six games taking place on one lawn at once), and also I am a bit aggrieved that archery is never offered to me as a standard party activity. Kilvert is a keen observer of place (in this case, mostly the Hay valley area of Wales) and a great describer, and often quite amusing. Here is part of the first diary entry, about a woman who had a wood owl. "She wanted to call the owl "Eve" but Mrs. Bridge [her sister] said it should be called "Ruth." She and her sister stranded in London at night went to London Bridge hotel....with little money and no luggage except the owl in a basket. The owl hooted all night in spite of their putting it up the chimney, before the looking glass, under the bedclothes, and in a circle of lighted candles which they hoped it would mistake for the sun....Miss Child asked the waiter to get some mice for "Ruth" but none could be got." Even today, though, the sparsely populated nature of the region means that one is still more likely to encounter sheep than people. And the countryside, quiet hamlets and remote churches of a low, squat design that Kilvert knew have changed so little and retain much of their former character. On 3 March 1878, Kilvert wrote lyrically of the view through the south porch: ‘the fresh sweet sunny air was full of the singing of the birds and the brightness and gladness of the spring. Some of the graves were as white as snow with snowdrops… the whole air was melodious with the distant indefinite sound of sweet bells.’Kilvert was an enthusiast for public bathing in the nude, which he regarded as natural and healthy. [4] The first entry in Kilvert's diaries in which he records his naked bathing was for 4 September 1872, at Weston-super-Mare. He writes: "Bathing in the morning before breakfast from a machine. Many people were openly stripping on the sands a little further on and running down into the sea and I would have done the same but I had brought down no towels of my own". However, next day Kilvert joins in the fun: "I was out early before breakfast this morning bathing from the sands. There was a delicious feeling of freedom in stripping in the open air and running down naked to the sea where the waves were curling white with foam and the red morning sunshine glowing upon the naked limbs of the bathers". [5] [6] Relationships with girls [ edit ] I've already written at perhaps too great length about some of the unhappinesses in Kilvert's life, but I'm sorry to say that I can't give you a happy ending. There are indeed two desperately unhappy finales to this story. In early 1939, extracts from the diary were broadcast on the radio. With the onset of war, Kilvert’s Diary, reportedly widely read by both soldiers and civilians, became for some a symbol of a kinder and gentler existence, a version of an almost mythical way of life perceived to be under threat from the prospect of a Nazi invasion. “We owe everything to you,” Hedley Burrows, the Dean of Hereford, wrote to Plomer, “for having recovered for us… for the English-speaking world – this treasure of a true country parson.” It was his rejection by Daisy Thomas, daughter of the vicar in Llanigon, that caused Kilvert to leave Clyro in 1872. He returned to Wiltshire to be his father’s curate for several years.

On August 11th 1874 (a mere month after he’d last mooned over Daisy) he met Katharine Heanley at a wedding. He was 33, she ten years younger, the daughter of a well-to-do Lincolnshire farmer. This seems more than a common or garden nightmare, and the reader is perhaps inclined to fear for the balance of his mind. On January 23 rd 1875 he records laconically: I found this book/diary incredibly interesting, it helped that I knew many of the areas spoken about around Clyro and Bredwardine. FK seems to be a fascinating person, one that you would like to meet until you realise that he died 139 years ago. He describes nature in a beautiful way and is constantly surprised by it

Kilvert’s Diary

A new edition of the abridged 1944 Diary was published in 2019 by Vintage Classics to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Kilvert starting his diary, which fell in January 2020. It includes a recently discovered photograph of Kilvert and a new introduction by Mark Bostridge. Alas, it never did all come right, though he continued to moon over her. As late as July 3rd 1874 he writes: Of course, it's impossible to tell whether he was misinterpreting her friendly concern as love. Either way, it all came to nothing. As a postscript, although we probably feel that Mr Thomas behaved correctly in this instance, given his daughter's youth and Kilvert’s precipitate ardour, it is notable that none of his five daughters ever got married; we can only guess to what extent his normal fatherly protectiveness became controlling behaviour. It may well be apocryphal, but it's said that Daisy was asked in old age why she'd never married, and she replied 'No one asked me.' Did she know how close Kilvert had come to asking her? The diary runs from January 1870 until just before his death on 23 September 1879. We believe the diary filled about twenty-nine notebooks. Mrs Kilvert removed all the notebooks from 9 September 1875 to 1 March 1876 and 27 June 1876 to 31 December 1877, we believe for personal reasons. She removed all mention of herself. On Mrs Kilvert’s death in 1911 the remaining twenty-two notebooks were passed to Kilvert’s sister Dora Pitcairn who in turn left them to her niece Frances Essex Hope, n ée Smith.