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Alec Guiness

Born in London in 1914, Sir Alec Guinness was one of the outstanding actors of his generation. His first professional appearance was at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, in 1933, and he went on to become a member of the Old Vic. During the war he served in the Royal Navy. His films include Oliver Twist, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Bridge on the River Kwai (for which he won an Oscar) and Star Wars. His theatre work includes The Cocktail Party, A Voyage Round My Father and Habeas Corpus. He famously played George Smiley in the TV adaptation of John le Carré's novels. He was knighted in 1959 and made a Companion of Honour in 1994. Alec Guinness sadly died early in 2000

When Sir Alec Guinness, one of the world's most respected and loved actors, died in August 2000 with him went a proud tradition in entertainment and theatre. After his death, one of his notebooks was found filled with quotations from favourite books, including thoughts on Shakespeare, anecdotes from the theatre, and even remarks overheard on the street. Here, Tony Lacey, Alec's editor at Penguin, tells us the enchanting story of the how the diaries were discovered and then published.

A few months before he died in August 2000 at the age of 86, Alec Guinness wrote to an acquaintance in the recording business asking if he would be prepared to produce an audio tape that he wanted to record. It would consist of Sir Alec reading some of his favourite poems and pieces of prose, and the idea was that copies of the tape would be given to a small circle of friends after his death. We now know that Sir Alec had already sounded out his son Matthew about the idea, and that Matthew had responded enthusiastically: it would be a wonderful memento for those who had known one of the greatest actors of the century. Sadly Sir Alec died before the recording could take place. But we also now know that the items that were planned for the tape were just part of a collection of favourite pieces that Sir Alec had been jotting down over a period of years.

After his death a couple of WH Smith lined exercise books were found in his study, filled with extracts written out in his neat, small handwriting. Mostly they were straight quotations: from Shakespeare, from Kipling and R. S. Thomas, from Updike and Woody Allen. Inevitably they reflected his main interests: the theatre and cinema, religion in all its diverse manifestations, America after the War, and so on. But scattered among the quotations were also general observations: ranging from bits of conversation overheard on the street to simple reflections on the state of his Hampshire garden.

No one knows what Sir Alec planned to publish next, after the success of his two volumes of journals. There was some talk of a book of letters addressed to his granddaughter, but no trace of such a book has been found. It seems possible that he would have wanted to publish a personal anthology based on the two Smiths exercise books. With the agreement of his son, it was therefore decided to publish them pretty much as they existed, some short entries in note form have been omitted, but apart from that no effort has been made to impose any kind of order or form on them. The result is a peculiarly interesting anthology, one that gives an immediate insight into the mind and tastes of one of the best-loved actors of his generation.