<p>Marie Bashkirtseff's diary was first published in 1887, and was only the second diary by a woman published in France till that date. It was an immediate success. British Prime Minister William Gladstone referred to her diary as "a book without a parallel", and another early admirer was George Bernard Shaw. Her diary was cited as an inspiration by the American writer Mary MacLane, whose own shockingly confessional diary was written a bare gener...