The Rev Francis Kilvert (1840-1879) was a Church of England priest remembered for his diaries, an evocative record of mid-Victorian rural society in England and Wales and a sensitive portrayal of his own spiritual and emotional yearnings. From 1865 to 1872 he was curate at Clro, Radnorshire (in the modern Welsh county of Powys); he subsequently served as curate at Langley Burrell (near Chippenham in Wiltshire), again at Clyro, and as vicar at St Harmon in Powys, before becoming vicar of Bredwardine, Herefordshire. he died on 23 September 1879, just a month after his marriage. His wife destroyed most of his diaries (embarrassed, perhaps, by the mild expressions of desire for other women that are present in the surviving portions); a selection from the remainder was first published in 1938. Fuller editions have been published subsequently.