A Diary Kept

Germon, MariaProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.4

Word count: 203K words
Chapters: 21

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.A Diary Kept by Mrs. R. C. Germon, at Lucknow, Between the Months of May andAuthor: Germon, Maria,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Dec 29, 2014

Editor's review

This book is the diary kept by Maria Germon (Mrs. R. C. Germon) at Lucknow, India, from May through the following months, a public-domain historical document prepared by Project Gutenberg. The value of the diary form lies in its first-person record of daily life and observations, offering primary-source material for the study of British expatriate society in nineteenth-century northern India. Unlike broad historical works, such private records preserve a wealth of trivial yet authentic detail: domestic arrangements, social intercourse, local sights, and shifting moods, through which readers can sense the immediacy of the historical moment. The content falls under Asian history and serves as supplementary reading for research on South Asian colonial history, women's writing, or diary literature. Readers should note the diary's subjectivity and fragmentariness; it should not be taken as a complete historical account but read alongside relevant background materials for cross-verification. For general readers it is rather a window onto life in a foreign land—moderate in length and easy to pick up and put down.

Who it's for

A good fit for

History enthusiasts interested in nineteenth-century colonial Indian social life
Literary readers drawn to women's private writing and the diary form
Students and teachers seeking primary sources for South Asian history
Essay readers who enjoy firsthand accounts of everyday life abroad

Not a good fit for

Beginners expecting systematic historical narrative or a general-history framework
Casual readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced storytelling
Rigorous researchers requiring modern scholarly annotation and textual criticism

Reading tips

Familiarize yourself with the mid-nineteenth-century history of Lucknow before reading, to better understand the events recorded.
Read chronologically and jot down names and places as you go to build a reading map.
Read the diary alongside contemporary works on South Asian history to distinguish private record from historical narrative.
Treat it as a fragmentary read for bedtime or commuting, taking in a few days' entries at a time.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What historical period does this diary cover?

According to the title information, the diary was written in Lucknow over a span from May through the following months, placing it in nineteenth-century colonial India. The exact year and historical events should be confirmed against the edition's notes and related sources; readers are advised to consult contemporary South Asian historical materials for comparison.

Is the diary complete, and is it suitable for scholarly citation?

This is a public-domain edition of the original diary text, without modern scholarly annotation or textual criticism. It can serve as primary-source reference for research, but before citing, verify the edition's provenance and cross-check against other sources; avoid drawing conclusions from a single private record alone.

Will general readers find this diary dull?

It depends on expectations. The diary centers on daily observations and private feelings, lacking a continuous plot; readers used to fast-paced narrative may find it fragmentary. But those interested in the details of life abroad and women's perspective writing may find in its fragments a genuine texture of lived experience.

Comments

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About the author

Germon, Maria Author

Maria Germon is an author about whom very limited public information is available. The only work currently confirmed is A Diary Kept. Judging from its title, the book is written in diary form and carries the qualities of a private record and everyday observation; such a genre usually emphasizes a personal perspective, chronological order, and the faithful presentation of details from daily life. Because reliable information on the author's nationality, dates of birth and death, education, and writing career is lacking, no further account can be given of her life or literary development, nor can the place of this work within her overall output be determined. The available material is not enough to outline her writing style as a whole. Readers who wish to learn about this author can only begin with this surviving work and appreciate its expressive features through the text's narrative manner and content. For researchers, the work may serve as a specific example for studying diary-form writing, but many questions surrounding the author herself still await fuller documentation.