How Memoir Lost Its Original Meaning — Maria Popova

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]How would you distinguish between diaries and memoir?

[00:00:04]I mean memoir is just the Instagram version of the diary.

[00:00:09]>> [laughter] >> But you know it's interesting that in the past up until the end of the 19th century memoir was used uh as the term meant somebody else writing to commemorate somebody who died.

[00:00:24]So for example when Margaret Fuller died Emerson wrote memoirs of Margaret Fuller that other people contributed to a so it was kind of other people remembering the person. As opposed to the person self-reporting their life.

[00:00:36]And then it it changed.