The Richard Burton Diaries Read Online Free PDF Page A

material removed from the print version will be found in the online version, with the exception of elements of a dozen entries that include material of a sensitive nature in respect of family members still living. Occasionally it has also been necessary to reorder or reorganize footnotes in order for the presentation of material to be consistent with the print version.

INTRODUCTION
    He is a deeply educated and remarkably unself-conscious man. He combines education with intuition to an unusual degree. He is a brilliant actor (in fact, he is all actor), but he is also an enemy to vulgarity and a man at war with boredom. He does not believe in a social elite nor will he take lodging in an ivory tower. He is a worker with a mind, but the worker remains. Happily, he is not snobbish in any direction. ... He sincerely likes all manner of humanity, and I envy the characteristic. He is sophisticated without being cynical. He is generous without aggrandizing himself. He is a first-class acting companion, and I admire his personality without reservation.
    William Redfield, writing about Richard Burton, 1964 1
    Diaries? Autobiography? Time will tell, and may surprise.
    Emlyn Williams, speaking at the Memorial Service for Richard Burton, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, 30 August 1984
    This introduction to Richard Burton's diaries performs a number of functions. First, it offers a sketch of the life of Richard Jenkins, later Richard Burton, from his birth in 1925 through to the beginning of what may be called the ‘diary years’, in 1965. During these first four decades Burton did keep two diaries which are reproduced in this volume: one in 1939/40, when he was still Richard Jenkins, and one in 1960, when he was married to his first wife, Sybil. Both are interesting, but neither offers anything in the way of a continuous narrative which might replace a broader overview of the subject's life in these years.
    Once we arrive at the beginning of 1965, however, the diaries are sufficiently substantial and sequential to render any biographical sketching redundant. Linking passages, situated chronologically amidst the text itself, perform the vital function of connecting those parts of the diaries kept between January 1965 and March 1972 with each other.
    After March 1972 the diaries are more fragmented. Further passages, also situated in the text, contextualize the primary materials for 1975, 1977, 1980 and 1983, and the last months of Richard Burton's life.
    The second section of this introduction addresses the question of the provenance and purpose of the diaries. Why did Burton keep them? Who was their intended audience? To what extent can one explain the lapses in making entries, or even the many months and years that separate some of the diaries that have survived?
    The third section extends this analysis by considering the value of the diaries, particularly when set against the context of the many biographies of Burton and of Elizabeth Taylor that purport to tell the story of the same period of time. To what extent, one has to enquire, do they represent a corrective to previously published accounts? Is it possible to see the diaries as harbouring a greater ‘truth’ than the many interviews given by Burton, or are they exercises in self-deception, no more reliable than any other source?
    Finally, the principles by which these diaries have been edited and prepared for publication will be explained.
    Richard Burton: A Biographical Sketch, 1925–1965
    Richard Walter Jenkins was born on 10 November 1925 at the family home, 2, Dan-y-bont, Pontrhydyfen in the Afan valley, Glamorgan, Wales. His father, also named Richard Walter Jenkins and born in the same place in 1876, was a collier. His mother, born Edith Maud Thomas in 1883, had been a barmaid, and was originally from Llangyfelach north of Swansea, six miles to the west. Richard Sr and Edith had married in 1900. Their eldest child, Thomas Henry, had been born in 1901, and by 1925 there