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This diary is missing.

Under the terms of Benson's will Percy Lubbock was allowed access to the diaries to make a selection for publication but were then to be sealed for 50 years. When the box containing the diaries was reopened in 1975, volume 6 was missing - 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.

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