James Woodforde (1740–1803)

A charming recounting of the long life of parson James Woodforde taken from his diaries kept from 1758-1802. He kept his diary assiduously with brief daily descriptions of everything from church news, where he dined, where he travelled to, where he slept, and all the people he saw or met. JW was a placid, imperturbable, serene bachelor who was slow to anger, generous to the poor, and enjoyed the company of friends and neighbours especially at meal times. It was a marked change from the show more maelstrom of strong emotions parson John Skinner wrote of in his diaries. Anyone researching a family tree from these two areas would be pleasantly surprised to see all the names of his parishioners. A pleasant read. show less

One of the best first hand sources for social history in the late 18th century, this is a famous diary kept for over 20 years by an Anglican clergyman who would be totally obscure without the diary's existence. Although the diary is best known for its notes about the meals Woodforde indulged in, what is really significant is the annual rhythm and rituals of country life, and the sense of isolation from 'news', even though the village he lived in was only a short distance from one of show more England's more substantial cities. Most editions are in one volume, but there is a five volume set in existence and the Woodforde Society is gradually publishing a complete set of transcriptions. The earlier parts of the diary have interesting glimpses of Oxford college life. show less

"Very flat, Norfolk", says a character in Noel Coward's "Private Lives"; and like the county in which the Rev. James Woodward spent most of his clerical life, his enormous daily diary is mostly very flat. That is not to say it is without incident, but it does mean that a sympathetic editor can, without great loss to the modern reader, make a principled single volume selection as has been done here. Much of its interest lies in the details of daily life and the interaction of personalities in show more what was a remote English farming community. As it was intended for and expected to be kept and read by his descendants there are none of the personal revelations of, for example, Boswell's "London Journal" or Pepys' diaries; but it has a charm of its own in its record of the daily life of a good man beset by irritations and cheered by kindnesses. show less

Abridged from the five-volume complete diary..