A Real Companion and Friend:
The diary of William Lyon Mackenzie King

Behind the Diary

The Public Document: The Diary as an Archival Treasure

The Private Becomes Public: The Impact of the Diary

On January 1, 1902, a somewhat self-conscious Mackenzie King addressed future readers of his diary, seeking, perhaps, to shape the eventual response to his torrent of words: "This journal is strictly private, and none should look upon its pages save with reverent eyes and a heart that can abide with silence, for it is the story of a human life, its ambitions, its beliefs, its failures & its broken achievements . . ." Despite these heartfelt admonitions, the reality was that once his narrative was out of his hands, King would have little influence over its impact.

While it is doubtful that anyone but King himself could approach the diary with all the sensitivity that he had desired, the first readers of the diary  -  his literary executors and those who laboured on his official biography  -  did treat the document with considerable discretion and respect, largely disregarding the diary's most idiosyncratic and intimate passages.

However, starting in 1960, the diary evolved from a private text, available only to a few trusted historians intent on exploring King's political career, into a public document open to a multitude of interpretations. This 21-year process began with the publication of the first volume of The Mackenzie King Record, an edited version of King's 1939-1948 entries. Next, Library and Archives Canada opened the first part of the diary, the years 1893 to 1931, to researchers. In 1973, this section of the diary was also published on microfiche by the University of Toronto Press. Not long after, the Archives began to apply the 30-year rule to the remaining portion of the diary (1934-1950), which meant that the entire document was finally available to researchers in 1980, the same year that the University of Toronto published the 1934-1950 diary entries on microfiche.

The publication of the diary in a microfiche edition transformed the document, making it available to researchers across the country. Not surprisingly, the first commentators on the diary were struck by the most sensational aspects of the text, particularly the entries touching on King's devotion to his mother, his complicated relations with women, and his profound interest in spiritualism. For many early readers, the diary invited attempts to psychoanalyze King. The most influential book epitomizing this approach was probably C.P. Stacey's A Very Double Life: The Private World of Mackenzie King. Stacey's reading of the diary not only had an impact on his fellow historians, but also prompted several Canadian creative writers to explore the complexities and mysteries of King and his world. Among the literary works inspired at least in part by the revelations found in King's diary were two plays, Elizabeth Gourlay's Isabel (1979) and Allan Stratton's Rexy (1981), and a trilogy by Heather Robertson King, comprising Willie: A Romance (1983), Lily: A Rhapsody in Red (1986), and Igor: A Novel of Intrigue (1989). Perhaps the best known of the literary responses to the diary was Dennis Lee's nursery rhyme "William Lyon Mackenzie King" from Alligator Pie, (1974).

Not everyone has been comfortable with the tendency to dwell on King's eccentricities. For example, H.S. Ferns, who was once very critical of King, later deplored the survival of the diary, arguing that it would detract from King's real accomplishments "as a Canadian politician in a period of extreme political disturbance." Despite the misgivings of Ferns and others, King's political reputation has steadily grown since the diary was released in its entirety. Many, it seems, are able to reconcile Mackenzie King's public and private worlds, viewing the diary not only as a window on the daily psychodrama of King's sometimes puzzling life but also as an incomparable record of Canada's political and social history over nearly 60 years. The critic Robert Fulford was among the first to express this more balanced view of the diary. For him, the text should be viewed as "a literary monument," in which ". . .The material is terrific, the cast of characters magnificent."

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