(Robert) Francis Kilvert - Professional Life, Kilvert's Diary, Kilvert adapted to film

Clergyman and diarist, born in Hardenhuish, Wiltshire, S England, UK. He was a curate at Clyro in Radnorshire and then vicar of Bredwardine on the Wye until his early death from appendicitis. His notebooks (1870–9), giving a vivid and affectionate picture of rural life in the Welsh marches, were discovered in 1937 and published as Kilvert's Diary, in three volumes (1938–40).

Robert Francis Kilvert (3 December 1840–23 September 1879), always known as Francis, or Frank, was born at The Rectory, Hardenhuish Lane, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, to the Rev. Robert Kilvert, Rector of Langley Burrell, Wiltshire, and Thermuthis, daughter of Walter Coleman and Thermuthis Ashe. He is remembered for his diaries, reflecting rural life in the 1870s, which were published several years after his death.

Professional Life

Kilvert was educated privately in Bath by his uncle, Francis Kilvert, before going up to Wadham College, Oxford.

Kilvert's Diary

Kilvert is best known as the author of voluminous diaries describing rural life. After his death from peritonitis, his frank and open diaries came into the possession of censorious relatives, and only three of the twenty or more volumes are known to have survived deliberate burning.

Poet William Plomer published the most widely-known selection of the diaries, as Kilvert's Diary, 1870-1879 (Penguin, 1938—corrected in the 1960s, and with an abridged and illustrated version for children published as Ardizzone's Kilvert in 1976). A somewhat different selection from that of Plomer was published as Journal of a Country Curate: Selections from the Diary of Francis Kilvert by The Folio Society in 1960. In 1992 a new selection was published under the editorship of David Lockwood, Kilvert, the Victorian: A New Selection from Kilvert's Diaries (Seren Books, 1992). Out of print since 1970, the 3 volume indexed edition was reprinted in 2006 by O'Donoghue Books of Hay-on-Wye (http://www.kilverts-diary.com)

The Cornish Diary: Journal No.4, 1870 - From July 19th to August 6th, Cornwall was published by Alison Hodge in 1989. The National Library of Wales, which holds one of the three surviving volumes, published The diary of Francis Kilvert: April-June 1870 in 1982.

Kilvert adapted to film

A John Betjeman BBC television documentary on Kilvert, called Vicar of this Parish, was shown in 1976 .

Kilvert's life was the loose basis for Mary Webb's novel Gone to Earth; Francis Kilvert and His World.