The Journal of a Disappointed Man
Under the pen name W. N. P. Barbellion, the young English naturalist Bruce Frederick Cummings kept a diary of extraordinary candor, tracking his passion for wildlife, his literary ambitions, his marriage, and the slow, cruel advance of the illness that would kill him before thirty. He called the book ‘a study in the nude,’ and it earns the phrase. By turns witty, vain, tender, and despairing, it hides nothing about the mind of a man watching his own body fail. H. G. Wells supplied an introduction, and early readers were startled by an entry announcing the author’s death. Few diaries capture so honestly the will to live pressed against the certainty of dying. Free to download as a PDF or EPUB.
About the Author
W. N. P. Barbellion was the pen name of Bruce Frederick Cummings (1889-1919), an English naturalist and diarist. Largely self-taught, he worked at the Natural History Museum in London until multiple sclerosis ended his career and his life. His journals were published to acclaim in…
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