Read Online The Richard Burton Diaries by Richard Burton, Chris Williams - Free Book Online Page B

principle, clearly subordinate to the first, is to remove any unnecessary obstacles to readability and accessibility. There seems little point in irritating or confusing readers by retaining typing errors or misspellings when no such ambiguity exists. (It cannot be said of Richard Burton, as it has been said of Virginia Woolf, that his spelling was ‘so consistently good that [his] rare aberrations are preserved’.) 24 Abbreviations have been bodied out and capitalization and punctuation have been rationalized, providing no damage is done thereby to the meaning of the text. Ampersands, unless integral to the title of (for instance) a business, have been replaced by ‘and’, the occasionalreplaced by ‘therefore’. Where handwriting places the title of a film or a book in inverted commas, that has been changed to italics. Where double quotation marks were used it has often been possible to render these as single quotation marks, more in tune with current practice. Such transformations have been made silently, that is, without the need for a footnote to mark them. The text has also been formatted in a consistent manner, so that dates are presented in standardized form.
    As for referencing, the primary objective followed in referencing the diaries has been to provide such information as is necessary or helpful for the reader in allowing him or her to understand the text. Thus, individuals mentioned have been given their full name, profession, vital dates (where known) and any other information of relevance (such as previous or future connections with Richard Burton). This has been provided once, on first mention (the reader will need to consult the index if they seek further information following a second or subsequent mention). Where no clarificatory footnote is provided, that is because no further information about that individual or location has been found.
    Book and film references have been clarified, where possible. Where Burton quoted from a poem, play or book it has usually been possible to identify the relevant line or passage and provide contextual (sometimes corrective) information. Where he referred to current affairs or historical events, brief explanatory notes have been provided. Where he mentioned locations, places, hotels or restaurants, again, clarification has been supplied wherever possible. Specialist terms have also been explained where this has been thought necessary.
    Except in very few cases it has not been thought necessary to provide references to the references, as it were. It should also be noted that the professional historian's caution has been rendered implicit rather than explicit, otherwise the word ‘presumably’ would make regular and tedious appearances throughout the notes. For some references at least, an element of guesswork and conjecture is involved, and corrections and further information will be welcomed for any future editions.
    Distances are given in the form appropriate to the location described. Thus, in the UK and the USA they are given as miles, but in Switzerland and France as kilometres.

    Virginia Woolf wrote that it was the role of the biographer to ‘admit contradictory versions of the same face’. 25 Neither the diarist nor, most certainly, the diarist's editor, may be thought a biographer, and there are significant differences between diarists and autobiographers, whatever claims may be made for the all-embracing genre of ‘life writing’. Yet Woolf's observation pushes us to recognize the fragmented nature of the individual life, the constructed character of any would-be coherent personal identity, and the difficulties that face any attempt to approach the ‘essence’ of any one person. 26
    Richard Burton was a complex, conflicted, and contradictory character. There is ample evidence of this in his diaries, as in other aspects of his turbulent life. It would be rash to claim that the diaries reveal the ‘true’ Richard Burton, not least because it is not