'A diary is an assassin's cloak which we wear when we stab a comrade in the back with a pen', wrote William Soutar in 1934. But a diary is also a place for recording everyday thoughts and special occasions, private fears and hopeful dreams. The Assassin's Cloak gathers together some of the most entertaining and inspiring entries for each day of the year, as writers ranging from Queen Victoria to Andy Warhol, Samuel Pepys to Adrian Mole, pen their musings on the historic and the mundane. Spanning centuries and international in scope, this peerless anthology pays tribute to a genre that is at once the most intimate and public of all literary forms. This new updated edition is published to mark the twentieth anniversary of the book's original publication.

In 1846 a small book entitled "Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell"appeared on the British Literary scene. The three psuedonymous poets, the Bront? sisters went on to unprecedented success with such novels as Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, and Jane Eyre, all published in the following year.

As children, these English sisters had begun writing poems and stories abotu an imaginary country named Gondal, yet they never sought to publish any of their work until Charlotte's discovery of Emily's more mature poems in the autumn of 1845. Charlotte later recalled: "I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my sister Emily's handwriting....I looked it over, amd something more than surprise seized me -- a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music -- wild, melancholy, and elevating."

The renowned Hatfield edition of "The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bront?" includes the poetry that captivated Charlotte Bront? a century and a half ago, a body of work that continues to resonate today. This incomparable volume includes Emily's verse from "Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell" as well as 200 works collected from various manuscript sources after her death in 1848. Some were deited and preserved by Charlotte and Arthur Bell Nichols; still others were discovered years later by Bront? scholars.

Originally released in 1923, Hatfield's collection was the result of a remarkable attempt over twenty years to isolate Emily's poems from her sisters' and to achieve chronological order. Accompanied by an interpretive preface on "The Gondal Story" by Miss Fannie E. Ratchford, author of "The Bront?'s Web of Childhood," the edition is the definitive collection of Emily Bront?'s poetical works.

Moriarty is a marvellous, skilful, fearsome cat. All enemies had better beware! And what mysterious creatures lie in wait in the garden shed? Life is so exciting; it's enough to make any cat quite sleepy.

In 1846 a small book entitled "Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell"appeared on the British Literary scene. The three psuedonymous poets, the Bront? sisters went on to unprecedented success with such novels as Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, and Jane Eyre, all published in the following year.

As children, these English sisters had begun writing poems and stories abotu an imaginary country named Gondal, yet they never sought to publish any of their work until Charlotte's discovery of Emily's more mature poems in the autumn of 1845. Charlotte later recalled: "I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my sister Emily's handwriting....I looked it over, amd something more than surprise seized me -- a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music -- wild, melancholy, and elevating."

The renowned Hatfield edition of "The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bront?" includes the poetry that captivated Charlotte Bront? a century and a half ago, a body of work that continues to resonate today. This incomparable volume includes Emily's verse from "Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell" as well as 200 works collected from various manuscript sources after her death in 1848. Some were deited and preserved by Charlotte and Arthur Bell Nichols; still others were discovered years later by Bront? scholars.

Originally released in 1923, Hatfield's collection was the result of a remarkable attempt over twenty years to isolate Emily's poems from her sisters' and to achieve chronological order. Accompanied by an interpretive preface on "The Gondal Story" by Miss Fannie E. Ratchford, author of "The Bront?'s Web of Childhood," the edition is the definitive collection of Emily Bront?'s poetical works.