Subserie 1 - Diaries

180 volumes, paper (vol. 6 is missing).

The diaries were left to the College by Benson but under the terms of his will were to remain closed until 50 years after his death.
Percy Lubbock was permitted to make selections for his publication The Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson (1926) and they were then sealed up in August 1927. Portions marked between red crayon crosses (but excepting matter in square brackets) were those selected by Percy Lubbock for publication.

When the box containing the diaries was reopened in 1975, a volume was missing (Vol. 6) - presumably removed and destroyed by Lubbock after he had used it for extracts. Lubbock was one of the most frequently and sometimes bitterly criticised persons in the diary, and he had discretion to destroy by the terms of Benson's will.

Between 1975 and 1979 access was restricted in order to allow Dr David Newsome to complete his two commissioned books based upon it On the Edge of Paradise; A.C. Benson, the Diarist (1980), and a volume of selections entitled Edwardian Excursions (1981).

Mr Hamilton and Dr Newsome compiled indexes which are available for consultation.

The diaries, from at least 1904, were intended to be read by posterity. The diary was 'commonly written up to date in great haste, often after a lapse of many days, and never revised or corrected at all' (Percy Lubbock).

Benson suffered two nervous breakdowns. He managed to keep writing in his diary during the first breakdown which lasted from 1907 to 1909. There is a very full description of the onset of the second breakdown in 1917 [see MCPP/ACB/1/167 and 168]. There is then a gap in the diaries - it is blank for the last five months of 1917 and for the period 15 June 1918 to 4 August 1922, apart from a few jottings in 1920. 13 pages covering 30 January to 29 June 1921 are written in the back of his 'Subjects' notebook [see MCPP/ACB/2/???????]

There is an index to the diaries:

https://www.magd.cam.ac.uk/system/files/2018-11/benson_diaries_index.pdf