Marcus’s Meditations are somewhat unique, in that they apparently were not meant for public consumption. This, as you say, makes them a very personal document. It also explains why there is so little argumentation in the text: Marcus is not really trying to convince us of anything. This is unusual for such an obviously philosophical work. Philosophy, from Antiquity on down, has always been characterized by arguments, by trying to show something substantive about the world. Marcus, because the text is for his own private use, isn’t really engaged in this project, however.

We can see this in how he tends to more or less state substantive Stoic dictums. Consider the following statement on the emotions:

And likewise one who, yielding to grief, anger, or fear, wishes that something had not come about, or were not coming about, or should not come about, of what has been ordained by the power which governs all things; for that too is law… and one who yields to fear or distress or anger is therefore a runaway slave (Meditations, 10.15)

Part of Marcus’s thought here is that one should not feel angry or distressed at the way things (inevitably) are. This sounds plausible, but in fact it is quite controversial. Thus, Aristotle:

I mean moral excellence; for it is this that is concerned with passions and actions, and in these there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. For instance, both fear and… anger… may be felt both too much or too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right aim, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of excellence (EN, 1106b16-23; see also 1125b26-1126b10).

Aristotle here is arguing for something quite the opposite of Marcus’s conclusion, namely that sometimes it is downright wrong to not feel angry! It is easy to supply such cases; imagine, for example, a father who is not angered by someone mistreating his child. Clearly, Aristotle says, something is wrong with such a person.

Why, then, doesn’t Marcus spend much time arguing for his position? Or responding to well-known objections to it? Well, because the text is for his own edification. Marcus is already intellectual convinced of the basic tenets of Stoicism, and so he simply takes them for granted.

(For a direct Stoic reply to Aristotle on this point, see Seneca’s On Anger. For an influential contemporary discussion of these and related matters, see Martha Nussbaum’s The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy.)

Now, I mention all this mainly by way of providing a caveat that will apply to every source I’m going to discuss below. That caveat is that none of them are personal in exactly the way that Marcus’s Meditations is, because all of them were very much prepared for public consumption. So, in each case, we do get insight into how the author is thinking, but we are also getting a polished text that is meant to do more than simply provide such insight. This bears keeping in mind, and I will try and briefly flag some of those other purposes. I will also mainly stick to broadly philosophical texts, since I infer from your interest in Marcus that this sort of text would be of interest.

To begin, nearly every canonical philosophical text meets your criterion to some extent. One can learn about Plato’s thoughts on justice from reading his Republic, for example. However, many philosophical texts are not really close to the sort of direct, personal approach of the Meditations. Plato is a case in point, for he never speaks in his own voice. His works are dialogues with characters, plots, and literary contrivances galore. Plato does not characteristically just come out and tell what he thinks and why he thinks it. He expects you to read and think along with him.

Aristotle, by contrast, does just come out and tell you what he thinks and why. That said, Aristotle is famously dry and academic; he deserves some credit (and perhaps blame), I think, for introducing the academic literature review. His general procedure is to first run through what other eminent persons have said on some subject, argue that these persons were all right in some respects and all wrong in some others, and then present and defend his own position. A good example of this procedure is De Anima, his inquiry into what it is in virtue of which living things are alive (and related matters). But, to read Aristotle is more akin to reading a lecture or textbook than anything else. You learn a lot about how and what the author thinks, but apart from the occasional revealing remark you learn very little about Aristotle the person.

As an example of such a revealing remark, Aristotle caustically remarks in the Rhetoric (1390b31) that the descendents of Socrates had degenerated into “fatuous and torpid types”, while in the Nicomachean Ethics (1096a12-16) he almost apologizes for disagreeing with Plato: “[Platonic] Forms have been introduced by friends of ours. Yet… [it is] our duty, for the sake of maintaining the truth even to destroy what touches us closely, especially as we are philosophers; for, while both are dear, piety requires us to honor truth even above our friends.”

From the Roman period, we have a number of letters and philosophical texts. If you are interested in Stoic philosophy, Seneca’s philosophical letters (Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium) are the obvious recommendation. Though, what we have here is not a personal correspondence, but rather letters crafted for a general readership. So, again, we have a distinction with Marcus, since Seneca’s letters are artificial in a way that Marcus’s musing are not.

Perhaps the closest analogue is the Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo. This, again, is very much a text aimed at a broader readership. But, it is also avowedly autobiographical, self-critical, and thoroughly revealing of the man behind the text in a way that is frankly uncommon throughout ancient literature. We learn far more about who Augustine was in this text than we do about Julius Caesar from his own avowedly autobiographical writings (most famously, the Gallic Wars), for example, because unlike Caesar Augustine is not writing political propaganda but instead a frank confession of fault and faith. And, like Marcus, Augustine is very much concerned with philosophical matters throughout; philosophers today still find his thoughts on time and the nature of evil instructive, even if few would outright endorse Augustine’s views. In addition to such musing, we also get a narrative of Augustine’s life, focusing on what he considered to be the seminal points in his intellectual and spiritual development. For example, there is a famous digression on how a teenage Augustine and his friends stole some fruit, which Augustine retrospectively finds interesting in that it is unclear what motivation such an action could have had for his younger self, who after all was quite well-off and not even hungry.

The Confessions of St. Augustine, written at the end of the 4th century by a Bishop in modern day Algeria. It details his life and journey to find God. It is fairly heavy on the religious and philosophical angles at some points, but at others it is just him talking about his relationship with his (pious) mother, and his (much less pious) father.

This thread has some recommendations regarding contextualising and further analysis of the text.

Edit: post in other thread by /u/talondearg

I am a big fan of Victor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning" in that the first part is an absolutely horrific, first person account of surviving the Holocaust by the author, and the second half is a practical treatise on the lessons the author, a trained psychologist, learned as a result.

It is actually a short read too, but the impact it has had on my life, anecdotally at least, is profound.

I apologize if this is too far removed from what you're asking but it definitely 'makes real' a person from the past and the era they lived in. I was fortunate to have read this recently so it is still in my mind. The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln is not about an important historical figure. Glückel was a fairly normal, if well off, Jewish woman living in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in Germany. One of few premodern Jewish memoirs that have survived to the present, it is the only one written by a woman.

Part diary, part letter to her children, written by someone with no knowledge of memoir as a genre, it is an intimate account of her life, her involvement in running her late husbands business, and of her children. Her emotions, opinions, and values are what make it such an interesting read. It truly lets you understand what it was like to live at this time and in this place like few other works I've read. Depending on if you have access to an academic institution you can find an English translation of the work online or purchase it at amazon here

Edit: You can also read a very detailed description of the work, written by a wonderful moderator of this sub, here for anyone interested

I'd throw a recommendation out to The Book of Margery Kempe, widely famous as the first autobiography (or maybe autohagiography, depends who you ask) in English. It's an account (mostly) dictated by Margery herself which details her life, beginning from childhood and following through her gradual renunciation of secular life, and transition to visionary and mystic. It's a complicated text with a fairly involved textual history (despite only existing in one manuscript), and it offers a fascinating window into how one late fourteenth-century woman processed and engaged with not only the religious and spiritual culture of her time, but also more day-to-day concerns such as marriage, family life, social status and travel. A lot of brilliant work has been done on it, particularly lately - see for instance L. Kalas and L. Varnam (eds), Encountering the Book of Margery Kempe, (Manchester University Press, 2021).

The British Library has digitised the manuscript here, and various translations are available, the newest of which are by Anthony Bale (2015) and Lyn Staley (2001), both of which are very good.

I found The Life of Orgyan Chokyi (published with analysis/background as Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun by Kurt Schaeffer) to be a fascinating window into life as a nun in 17th-18th century Tibet, especially the earlier chapters which describe her life before becoming a nun (mostly herding and tending yaks in the mountains) and during her initiation (going on pilgrimages, working in the kitchen, etc). It’s one of the only extant autobiographical works by a Tibetan woman and Schaeffer’s edition contains extensive background on Buddhism in the Dolpo region of Nepal/Tibet during that area.

The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyeong (한중록 , hanjungnok). It's a collection of four autobiographical works about her life as the wife of the Korean crown prince Sado at the court of King Yeongjo (r. 1724-1776).

Besides discussing her own thoughts and feelings about life at the royal court, she also does a good job of humanizing other important figures, mainly her father-in-law and her husband. It makes for a nice juxtaposition to other sources, which discuss the royal family in a much more formal way.

Caesar Commentarii de Bello Gallico, a firsthand account of the Gallic wars written from a third person point of view by Julius Caesar. Just understand that this text was meant to be used as propaganda by the author to promote himself and his war in a time of heavy political turmoil. Everything said in there is not only a recounting of the story but also a political statement.

If you like gossip and shady rumors Procopius Secret History is for fault of a better term a soap opera version of the lives of Justinian, Theodora and Belisarius. But take everything it says with a huge grain of salt.

Xenophon Cynegeticus subject is hunting with dogs. There are many insights on the relationship between animals and humans and general grooming. If you are a dog lover this is the one for you.

“The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg” is a collection of the personal correspondence of one of the greatest European revolutionary socialists/feminists/anti-militarists/democrats that ever lived (in my opinion, lol). On the one hand, it’s very interesting to see how it actually worked, on a personal level, to be a major figure in an international revolutionary movement. But even more for me, the book is wonderful because it’s an opportunity to see the world through her eyes. Because she really thought the world was a beautiful place that was worth fighting for. I can’t help myself, I’m going to attach a quote - this was written while she was imprisoned, I believe for agitating for popular suffrage, and just shows how full of life and love she was. Not to be saccharine but this quote has meant a lot to me.

“The prison yard was empty and, as always, I was alone, a stranger to everything around me. From the open windows of the prison came the thumping and knocking sounds of Saturday’s scrubbing and scouring, and now and then a loud reprimanding voice could be heard; meanwhile the chaffinch, way up high in the poplar tree, kept repeating its birdcall over and over, and the trunk of the poplar tree, which is still quite bare and leafless, gave off a silvery gleam in the slanted rays of the departing sun. Everything breathed of such peace, and my gaze was fixed on the softly smiling cloud formation far off there in the sky. —I stood there as though enchanted, and I thought to myself, and to all of you: Do you not see how beautiful the world is? Do you not have eyes as I do and a heart like I do to rejoice in it all?”

:)

La relación de Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca ("The story of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca") is the account of his experiences with the Narváez expedition and after being wrecked on Galveston Island in November 1528. Cabeza de Vaca and his last three men struggled to survive. They wandered along the Texas coast as prisoners of the Han and Capoque American Indians for two years, while Cabeza de Vaca observed the people, picking up their ways of life and customs. They traveled through the American Southwest and ultimately reached Mexico City, nearly eight years after being wrecked on the island.

I can highly recommend Yes, My Commander (original title Oui, mon commandant!) by Amadou Hampâté Bâ, published posthumously in 1994. It is a very insightful memoir and provides an often overlooked perspective on colonial history: Bâ, a Malian writer, historian and ethnologist, worked as a clerk and translator for the French colonial administration in Burkina Faso and Mali ('French West Africa' at that time) for 20 years (1922-1942). He does not only provide very rich ethnographic details on the people of different ethnicities he encounters during his time travelling through Burkina and Mali, but reflects on the colonial political situation in West Africa, on his position as an African working for the colonisers and the tensions that arose between him and others like him as 'African intermediaries' and other Africans who were not involved with the colonial administration.
I think this is a very valauble memoir that is opening a window into the Lebenswelt of people and places that are usually not covered by Western colonial sources (and they could never truly be covered by any colonial source).

Edit: orthography

I can highly recommend the diaries of Viktor Klemperer, a jew in Nazi Germany who not only observed changes in society - sometime daily - but also, being a linguist, revealing the change in everyday language, warped and abused by the regime.

It is published as Lingua Tertii Imperii: Notizbuch eines Phililogen or in english as The Language of the Third Reich.

I highly recommend it to everyone who is even remotely interested in Nazi Germany and how much of an impact subtle changes of language can have on society.

Having studied german language myself and always being interested in the power of narratives and propaganda, this piece of scientific art is a milestone both in the scientific and the autobiographical genre.

In the same vein as Meditations, another text you might find interesting is the late UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld's Vägmärken/Markings.It’s an adaptation of his personal diary and, much like Meditations, wasn’t written with public consumption in mind. Incidentally, it's also one of my favourite books. It covers half of Hammarskjold’s life, from 1925 to 1961. Most editions contain Hammarskjöld’s letter to Leif Belfrage (a former Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs for Sweden) which was left with his diary and which reads:

“Dear Leif : Perhaps you may remember I once told you that, in spite of everything, I kept a diary which I wanted you to take charge of someday. Here it is. It was begun without a thought of anybody else reading it. But, what with my later history and all that has been said and written about me, the situation has changed. These entries provide the only true “profile” that can be drawn. That is why, during recent years, I have reckon with the possibility of publication, though I have continued to write for myself, not for the public. If you find them worth publishing, you have my permission to do so – as a sort of white book concerning my negotiations with myself – and with God.”

That last part has led to Markings often being called a book of modern spiritualism, and that’s a fair statement. But it’s also an intimate insight into the mind of a deeply complex man, especially their moral, spiritual and philosophical perspectives. For example, Markings places the concept of sacrifice at the absolute core of Hammarskjöld’s person: throughout his life he consistently emphasised in his own reflections the need to be willing to give everything, and contextualised this with reference to his faith. He was also intensely self-flagellating in his writings, and often indirectly reflects on his own failings. There’s also discussion of diplomatic nous: page 114 of the Vintage Books edition, for example, is dedicated to the philosophy of successful diplomacy (although, as I explain below, it doesn’t clearly signpost why this is the case). One small entry on page 141 of the Vintage Books edition (“From injustice, never justice. From justice, never injustice.”) conceals a complex conception of jurisprudence and the purpose/function of law. Markings additionally reveals a complex relationship with Christian mysticism, which is why reading guides for it tend to be religious in nature.

Speaking of reading guides, one of the ironies of Vägmärken is the total lack of contextual markers for readers. Hammarskjöld was writing for himself, and so almost every entry lacks context – very few include more context than the year they were authored. The writing style is also all over the place. It moves from conversations with a reader to conversations with God, to quotations from the Bible, to poems, to short stories or parables, to original (and, occasionally, unoriginal) proverbs. One entire section consists solely of Haiku. Without a reading guide or a biography of Hammarskjöld as complement, it would be very easy to get lost and to not understand the real-world context in which he was writing. To take one straightforward example, an entry from 1958 is entitled "single form" and consists of a short poem. Without knowing that Hammarskjöld was a fan of Barbara Hepworth's sculptures, this entry is obtuse, but with that context in mind, it can be read as a literary study of a physical form - one which held an important enough place, in Hammarskjöld's life, that the installation of a Hepworth sculpture at the UN Headquarters was seen as a fitting memorial. Other entries are often much more obscure or esoteric, so I would really recommend reading Markings either with a reading guide or alongside a biography like Hammarskjöld: a Life.

Leif Sjöberg and WH Auden generally translated the original Swedish/French text well, but took some occasional liberties. One interesting example is the title itself. “Waymarks” would perhaps be a more accurate translation, and would better capture another running theme throughout the text – Hammarskjöld’s love of mountains and nature.

The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon is essentially a diary of a court lady in Heian Japan in the early 1000s. She doesn’t ask herself existential questions but she’s very honest about daily life, what irritates her, and what she enjoys. Lots of sexual escapades in there, too. I love it and I don’t know why more people don’t talk about it! In one of her diary entries she lists all the things that annoy her and it’s absolutely hilarious.

It's not as far back as some of the others, but I found Stefan Zweig's autobiography "The World of Yesterday" to be an absolutely brilliant book. Zweig lived between 1881 and 1942 and was one of the most popular authors of his time. Zweig describes the changes going on in Europe at the time. Himself a jewish liberal pan-European, he watches with horror the growing nationalism and antisemitism across the continent. And at the same time, the book also gives insight into the lives of some of Europe's leading artists from the era.

The book covers Zweigs entire life, unfortunately, in 1942 he could no longer stand the destruction of the Europe he loved, two days after sending the book to his publisher, he took his own life.

“Shah of Shahs” by Ryszard Kapuściński is a fascinating insight into the immediate aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and the people who lived there, written by a Polish journalist who was there at the time (there’s English translations). The way he writes you can get an incredible look into the daily life and people of Iran at the time, and the events that lead to what happened. Really breathes life into the era.

Frederick E Maning wrote Old New Zealand, one of only two accounts of living in New Zealand in the precolonial period as a "Pakeha Maori" with Ngapuhi Maori.

It gives a lot of insight into a time in New Zealand history which is radically different to today, but also shows a lot of the Victorian 'frontier' mindset of a man who was desperate to get away from many of the problems of 'civilized' British society while also importing those problems into a new country (Maning would later be a judge on the Native Land Court, which alienated Maori from their land).

Depends on what historical figures/history you are interested in. If you are interested in the great people of Roman and Greek history then I would start with Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. If you want to read about the events that led to the fall of the republic then I would read the complete works of Julius Caesar as well as Plutarch’s Fall of The Roman Republic (my absolute favorite). If you want more writings that spawned philosophical followings that are similar to Aurelius’ meditations then I would recommend Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic as it is the foundation that Aurelius built on. The driest of these is by far the works of Julius Caesar but it is packed with first hand accounts of a ton of relevant history which is a rarity for historical events over 2000 years ago.

Two of my favorite books:

"My Life" by the incredibly talented sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini, which gives an astoundingly detailed look into the world of Renaissance Italy, through the eyes of one of its most passionate, vindictive, and even malicious artists. Not only does Cellini describe how he made his masterworks in painstaking detail, he goes into his petty rivalries with other artists, the court intrigues at the Vatican and with the Medicis and others, and even supposed supernatural phenomena. Highlights include the sack of Rome in 1527 and Cellini's attempted prison escape from the Castel Sant Angelo.

"Monsieur Nicolas" by Restif de la Bretonne. This hilariously ribald autobiography set in revolutionary era France, mostly Paris, is somewhat similar to Casanova's, except Restif is more or less just a regular Joe. He doesn't hobnob with royalty or nobility, he's just trying to get laid as much as possible and eke out a living. A man after my own heart, really.

There seems to be no Englisch translation (however a Russian one), only German, but a lot of people here can read German so recommending it:

Ostpreussisches Tagebuch, Aufzeichnungen eines Arztes aus den Jahren 1945-1947, Hans von Lehndorf (Eastern Prussian dairy, a doctor's notes of the years 1945-1947)

That's the diary of a German (noble) person, a surgeon, who was in Kaliningrad during the battle of Kaliningrad/Koenigsberg; surviving this, trying to reaching his family's lands (as far that his family still existed) further West, went step by step "direction West" crossing Poland. The fact that he was doctor (surgeon, but could deal with "simple" things also) helped probably to survive that time (each winner, Russians, Polish people could use his knowledge), also the fact that he had a strong (Christian) faith, and the fact that he loved nature and knew how to hunt; besides he was able to get along with everyone, whatever language spoken (with all "sorts of enemies"); so:

He wrote a diary entry of each day during these 2 years. Each and every day was absolute hell. There was not anyone (besides the medical crew in which he was just working) to trust. It was Russians against Polish people, hunger, cold, and everyone was taking everthing from everybody, since those lands before had been robbed of by the Nazis, now, the remaining people there and the new coming Russians took as they could of what was left - and he was between all lines; keeping trust and humanity up as far as possible.

Why it's interesting (after me) also: there seems not to be much literature about the situation there, in those areas including Poland - research and docs focus on Germany and the camps (which is of course important) however the fact that a little further eastern, situation was hell, seems rarely described.

Not a light book and after a few pages need a break.

Edit: Thank you very much for upvote! That is the first time ever (ah, had a few users since browser cookies deleted unintentionally deleted the pw that i had forgotten) in this fantastic sub askHistorians that it was not deleted and even got a "like" - thank you! That makes me really happy and "proud".

There are two works that I think you'd appreciate for their candid views into ancient Roman life. The first one is Juvenal's Satires and the second is the Epigrams of Martial. Both were active in around 100 years AD during the more stable period of the empire that followed the chaos which lasted almost a century post Augustus' death. If you feel comfortable reading more poetic language, these two books are invaluable to get a real glimpse into the everyday lives of Romans.

The autobiography of Giacomo Casanova "Histoire de ma Vie" may apply, though Casanova is arguably only well known today BECAUSE of his autobiography. He lived a very interesting life to say the least, but beyond that his memoirs are often cited as one of the best sources of information concerning the social lives of Europeans during this period.

Being an autobiography it's quite personal and candid, he even includes several passages where he directly addresses the reader.

I'm not sure if it's been offered, but ciceros letters (in various volumes) are good, similarly so are Pliny the youngers letters. In both cases they are personal correspondences with various individuals that display a largely personal insight into their periods.

Pliny is less of a 'historical figure' than cicero, but it does have some responses of trajan, and it can give a strong insight into the responsibilities of a Roman Magistrate abroad.

Ciceros are more of an insight Into an important political of the period, but they range from political to commercial (buying and selling property) and can give a good insight into the concerns of a Roman politician of the period (both in and out of political life)

Are the meditations all in one book?

I'm not a historian, and it's decidedly recent, but I got the same feeling you describe, about Terre des hommes, published in English as Wind, Sand, and Stars, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Many of us are familiar with The Little Prince, but his memoir is a greater work, IMHO.

As a student of both aviation and radio, this blows me away as a peek into the comparatively-recent but breathtakingly-primitive stage of both, before radar and modern navigation, when flying was a seat-of-your-pants endeavor at the best of times. When pilots just didn't come back. A lot. But it was technically possible to deliver mail to the overseas colonies, so we were going to do so. If that means wandering in the desert for a week dying of thirst and hallucinating after a crash-landing, so be it.

It's still a little weird to me that Aeropostale's well-earned reputation for badassery lives on as a fashion brand, but there you go, I guess.

There's also a fair bit in there about the author's personal relationships, with other pilots and friends he met along the way. About his views of life and the world, and the changes the world seemed to be going through. And about loss. So much loss.

It's a bit grandiose at times, so maybe this fails the "personal style" test, but I think there's plenty to redeem it.

Hi there anyone interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on /r/AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably, OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted a non-specialist opinion. So give us some indication why the thing you're recommending is valuable, trustworthy, or applicable! Posts that provide no context for why you're recommending a particular podcast/book/novel/documentary/etc, and which aren't backed up by a historian-level knowledge on the accuracy and stance of the piece, will be removed.

Seneca's letters are the most directly similar that I can think of, but the one that really blew me away is the trial of Jeanne D'arc, although technically that's a series of transcripts not a book. Oh, and the Gospel of Mark is worth a look if you can find a translation of it that preserves the actual style of it rather than normalizing it (most don't).

Frantz Fanon's Black Skin White Masks is a philosophical work but one written in the first person kind of as prose. In that sense I guess it's similar to Meditations. He writes about various racist experiences he has had and they way they've personally affected him, specifically focusing on dehumanisation and objectification; the style is known as an autoethnography. It could be a bit difficult to read for someone unacquainted with Continental philosophy, but it's very well written, with a great dry sense of humour as well, as well as a massively important work.