Beyond words

Susan Snyder

"In the age before cameras, the skill of illustration - like that of piano playing, good penmanship, and journaling - was frequently the mark of an educated person. Whereas the written word alone can adequately record the details of one's life, enhancing that with illustration adds yet another texture to the story, resulting in works that both intrigue the mind and delight the eye. Beyond Words is a collection of excerpts from fifty illustrated diaries spanning two hundred years of adventure and contemplation. From the records of eighteenth-century Spanish explorer Pedro Font to those of a young David Brower first encountering the wilderness, these unfolding stories reveal as much about the times in which they were written as they do the diarists’ particular inner worlds. Whether filled with chicken-scratch sketches or gilded illuminations, these diaries have become objets d’art that...