A collection of Alan Rickman’s personal diaries will be published together as a single book and be made available in 2022, according to The Guardian.
The actor known for the “Harry Potter” films and “Die Hard” wrote 27 volumes of diaries that span 25 years and date back to the early ’90s. “The Diaries of Alan Rickman” will be edited into one book and will be published in the U.S. and the U.K. in the fall of 2022.
The handwritten volumes are described as “witty, gossipy and utterly candid” in their description of his daily life. Rickman had intended that they would one day be published, with him writing up until his death of pancreatic cancer at age 69 in 2016.
Alan Taylor, editor of the Scottish Review of Books, is editing “The Diaries of Alan Rickman” for publisher Canongate in the U.K. and Holt in the U.S. Taylor previously put together collections of journals and diaries by other notables, such as “The Tale of Peter Rabbit author Beatrix Potter, poet Dorothy Wordsworth and novelist John Fowles, best known for “The French Lieutenant’s Woman.”
Rickman’s diaries include his experiences as an avid theatergoer and stories from the set of the “Harry Potter” films, where he starred as Snape between 2001 and 2011.
“I’m delighted that Canongate will be publishing Alan’s diaries, and couldn’t have wished for a finer appointment of editor than Alan Taylor,” Rima Horton, Rickman’s widow, told The Guardian. “The diaries reveal not just Alan Rickman the actor, but the real Alan – his sense of humour, his sharp observation, his craftsmanship and his devotion to the arts.”
“More than anything though, the diaries reveal the real Alan Rickman, funny, passionate, occasionally provocative, and give fresh insight into his art,” Canongate told The Guardian in a statement. “He wrote his diaries as if chatting with a close friend. They provide pitch-perfect vignettes: short, pithy paragraphs painting big pictures, and offering intriguing insights into himself, his peers and the world around him. They are intimate, perceptive and very funny.”
Rickman is also known for films such as “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Galaxy Quest,” “Bob Roberts,” “Dogma,” “Love Actually” and more.
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