A Peek Inside the Notebooks of Famous Authors, Artists and Visionaries

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It’s no secret that we at Flavorpill are fascinated by the marginalia of our favorite artists’ lives — we swoon over their doodles, dig through their sketchbooks, and posthumously ogle their beach photos. Recently, aided by one of our favorite Tumblr destinations for literary ephemera, Fuck Yeah, Manuscripts!, we’ve indulged in a little more snooping, and put together this collection of a few of the notebooks, journals and diaries of some of our favorite creative minds — authors, artists, actors, musicians, scientists — so as to better get to know their inner selves. Click through to page through the notebooks of a few famous creatives, and let us know which one looks the most like your own in the comments.

Nick Cave’s handwritten dictionary of words, 1984. Nick Cave Collection, the Arts Centre, Melbourne [via]

Keith Haring’s journal, January 12, 1979. [via]

An 1884 notebook in which Mark Twain, “toying with the notion of a physician trying to write a play,” experimented with several hilarious character names. [via]

Marilyn Monroe’s diary. From Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters by Marilyn Monroe. [via]

A page from one of Kurt Cobain’s journals. [via]

A page from Herman Melville’s journal, about meeting Captain Pollard of the Essex. [via]

One of Leonardo da Vinci’s many notebooks, this one diagramming a potter’s wheel, c. 1508-1509. [via]

Milton Glaser’s sketchbook, from Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World’s Great Graphic Designers, courtesy of the artist and Monacelli Press. [via]

Jennifer Egan’s journal. [via]

Frida Kahlo’s diary. [via]

Diary entry by Charlotte Brontë, 1836. [via]

A page from Albert Einstein’s “Travel Diary to the U.S.A.” [via]

Jack Kerouac’s notebook, 1953 [via]

Thomas Edison’s to-do list, 1888. [via]

David Foster Wallace’s notebook/draft of The Pale King. [via]