memoir

memoir, history or record composed from personal observation and experience. Closely related to, and often confused with, autobiography, a memoir usually differs chiefly in the degree of emphasis placed on external events; whereas writers of autobiography are concerned primarily with themselves as subject matter, writers of memoir are usually persons who have played roles in, or have been close observers of, historical events and whose main purpose is to describe or interpret the events. The English Civil Wars of the 17th century, for example, produced many such reminiscences, most notable of which are the Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow and Sir John Reresby. The French have particularly excelled at this genre; one of the greatest memoirists of his time was the Duc de Saint-Simon, whose Mémoires (covering the early 1690s through 1723), famous for their penetrating character sketches, provide an invaluable source of information about the court of Louis XIV. Another of the great French memoirists was François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand, who devoted the last years of his life to his Mémoires d’outre-tombe (1849–50; “Memoirs from Beyond the Tomb”). In the 20th century, many distinguished statesmen and military men have described their experiences in memoirs. Notable reminiscences of World War II are the memoirs of England’s Viscount Montgomery (1958) and Charles De Gaulle’s Mémoires de guerre (1954–59; War Memoirs, 1955–60).