Journals by Kurt Cobain

Journals reproduces, in facsimile, pages from more than twenty notebooks Kurt Cobain filled between 1988 and his death in 1994, published by Riverhead Books in 2002.

The book presents handwritten drafts of Nirvana lyrics, unsent letters, band correspondence, set lists, drawings, and stream-of-consciousness writing exactly as Cobain wrote them, misspellings and cross-outs included, with almost no editorial framing or commentary. Riverhead's Julie Grau edited the volume in cooperation with Cobain's estate, choosing to let the pages stand as primary documents rather than shaping them into a conventional biography.

Cobain founded and fronted Nirvana, whose 1991 album Nevermind brought grunge into the mainstream before his death at twenty-seven. Journals remains one of the few extended firsthand records of his working process, read alongside the band's studio output and the wave of biographies and documentaries it has since generated.