Memoirs and Profiles Directory

(personal experiences and memories of past events)

memoir (MEM wawr), memoirs (MEM wawrz): An account of the personal experiences or autobiographical revelations by a writer. It is also considered to be a record of facts about a subject personally known or investigated and a narrative of one's life or experiences.

A memoir differs from a simple autobiography by not focusing on the author as the primary focus, but on people and events in the writer's life. Emphasis is placed on personal observations about external events.

Every man's memory is his private literature.
—Aldous Huxley

How is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?
—Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
How these curiosities would be quite forgott, did not such idle fellowes as I am putt them downe.
—John Aubrey (1626-1697), English antiquary,
biographer, and folklorist.