The Diary of Miss Idilia presents the reader with an unusual problem. The writing is entirely comprehensible, the tale it tells couldn’t be easier to follow. The tricky bit, though, comes with trying to work out what on earth the book is.
In 1851, 17-year-old Idilia Dubb was on holiday in the Rhineland with her middle-class Edinburgh family when one morning she disappeared. A lengthy search found nothing, and her parents returned home. Then, in 1860, workmen restoring Lahneck castle outside Coblenz discovered her remains at the top of a seemingly inaccessible tower. Near the body was Idilia’s diary, which recorded in tones of increasing anguish how she’d climbed up a wooden staircase, and how it had collapsed immediately afterwards, leaving her stranded without food, water or means of escape.
Despite widespread public interest, the Dubbs wouldn’t allow Idilia’s diary to be published — partly because it was so rude about them — and it eventually ended up the property of a private trust in Scotland, where it was recently tracked down by an American academic.
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