New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009 by Teresa Carpenter

An intriguing Q&A at Mid-Manhattan reading last night. Maybe questions so sharp because book has been out long enough for many of the audience to have to read it. One question I’d never gotten before. “Was there anyone who kept a diary with the express intent that someone special would find it and read it?” Actually, yes. The artist/illustrator John Sloan kept a diary for the benefit of his wife, Dolly. She suffered from alcoholism and low esteem. He wanted her to read his entries so that she would know how much she meant to him. They had reputedly met in a house of prostitution. Good marriages come from the strangest unions.

Source: NYTimes.com – Photos: Moore: Rosenbach Museum and Library; Lerman: Stephen Pascal; Delaplaine: New York Public Library; British officer: New York Historical Society

Pages from the diaries of Marianne Moore, modernist poet; Leo Lerman, Condé Nast editor; an anonymous British officer serving during the Revolutionary War; and Joshua Delaplaine, a Quaker cabinetmaker in the 1700s.

Read more: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/new-york-diaries-in-the-authors-hand