List of longest diaries

This is a list of diaries notable for their exceptional length, primarily by word count but also by duration.

Table of diaries sortable by word count and duration
Author Word count Duration Period Notes
Laura Penrose Francis[a] 40 million 60 years 1952–2012 Word count and duration as of 2012.[2]
Robert Shields 37.5 million 25 years 1972–1997 Exact word count not available until 2049.[3]
Claude Fredericks 30 million 80 years 1932–2012[4] Word count is estimated; the manuscript runs to 65,000 pages.[5]
Joseph Holloway 25 million 45 years 1899–1944 "Dublin playgoer." Published diaries 1899 to 1944.[6][7]
Edward Robb Ellis 22 million 71 years 1927–1998
Tony Benn 20 million[8] 69 years 1940–2009 A better estimate is 15.7m. "The full unedited diaries [in 2007] amount to around fifteen million words."[9]
Heinrich Witt 18 million 70 years 1859–1890 Witt (1799–1892) was born in Germany, lived in Peru, and wrote in English.[10]
Arthur Crew Inman 17 million 44 years 1919–1963 155 volumes.[11] Other accounts state 10 million words.[12]
Li Shuxiang 13 million 74 years 1941–2015[b] 85 volumes.[13]
Nella Last 12 million[14] 28 years 1939–1967 Participant in Mass Observation project.
Dr. John Henry Salter 10 million 83 years 1849–1932 GP of Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex.[15]
Thomas McGrath 9 million 50 years 1973–2022[c] [16]
Henri-Frédéric Amiel 6 million 42 years 1839–1881 173 journals; 16,800 pages.[17]
Harold L. Ickes 6 million[18] 19 years 1933–1952 "…nearly a hundred volumes of closely-typed copy…"[19]
Ellsworth James 5.9 million 63 years 1944–2007 Word count does not include first year (1944) which was handwritten. 1946-2007 manually typed.[20]
Anne Lister 5.6 million[d] 34 years 1806–1840 She frequently used a cypher or "crypt hand" she had devised herself.[22]
Frederic Madden 4 million 54 years 1819–1873 43 volumes.[23]
John Gadd 4 million 45 years 1975–2020 Started in 1947[24] but kept consistently from 1975.[25]
Rev. Dr. Andrew Clark 3 million 4 years 1914–1918 92 volumes.[26]
George C. Edler 2.859 million 80 years 1907–1987 76 volumes.[27] 1987 and 1988 Guinness Book of World Records has different dates.
Henry David Thoreau 2 million 25 years 1837–1861 Over 2 million words in 39 notebooks.[28] [29]
Naomi Mitchison 2 million[30] 6 years 1939–1945 Participant in Mass Observation. Diary published forty years after she wrote it.[31]
Beatrice Webb 1.79 million 70 years 1873–1943 Diaries available online.[32]
Chen Xiukang 1.5 million 4 years 2012–2016[e] Began keeping a diary to cope with his wife's death.[33]
Samuel Pepys 1.25 million 9 years 1660–1669 Written in shorthand.[34] The 1893 edition is available online.[35]
Margaret Elizabeth Fountaine 1 million 61 years 1878–1939 12 volume diary.[36]
Jean Lucey Pratt 1 million 61 years 1925–1986 Over a million words in 45 exercise books.[37]
Ernest Achey Loftus Unknown 92 years[f] 1896–1987 Guinness World Record for longest kept diary.[38][39]
Evie Riski Unknown 89 years [40] 1936–2025[g] "A 100-year-old American woman has journalled every day for 90 years… nearly 33,000 entries…"[41] [Actually 89 years or 32,547 days]
Robert Parry Unknown 74 years 1539–1613 Diary written in Welsh.[42]
Anne Perkins Unknown 74 years 1935–2009 American, Quaker, librarian at Swarthmore College. Over one hundred volumes, only 16 were preserved.[43]
Henry Edward Price Unknown 74 years c.1830–1904 Cabinet maker, begins with reminiscence of childhood.[44]
Robert Birrel Unknown 73 years 1532–1605 Burgess of Edinburgh, diary of incidents in Scotland.[45]
Jeremiah Moseley Unknown 73 years 1803–1876 18 volumes.[46]
John Amphlett Unknown 73 years 1854–1918 42 volumes, extremely full accounts.[47]
Daniel Times Unknown 72 years 1776–1848 Coroner, medical diary.[48]
Sir Thomas Francis Fremantle Unknown 72 years 1798–1890 51 vols, September 1814–January 1815 and 1837–86.[49]
Sir Arthur Pendarves Vivian Unknown 72 years 1851–1923 64 volumes, personal and travel journals.[50]
Joseph Jeppa Anderson Unknown 72 years 1878–1950 20 volumes.[51]
Thomas Asline Ward Unknown 71 years 1800–1871 Master Cutler of Sheffield in 1816. Some entries in French, Italian or Latin.[52] [53]
Prince George, Duke of Cambridge Unknown 71 years 1832–1903 Enormous and consistent record of his whole life.[54]
Ellen Laetitia Philips Unknown 71 years 1842–1913 48 volumes: 1842, 1850-79, and 1881–1913. .[55]
William Ewart Gladstone Unknown 70 years 1826–1896 Private diary, 1826 to 1895 or 1896.[56] [57]
Mary Barwick Baker Unknown 70 years 1834–1904 Née Fenwick. Personal notes entered in annual volumes.[58]
Lady Louisa de Rothschild Unknown 70 years 1837–1907 Diary from July 1837 to December 1907 (with gaps).[59]
Lady Anne Noel Blunt Unknown 70 years 1837–1917 Née King. 214 volumes, July 1847 to November 1917.[60]
Violet Bonham Carter Unknown 70 years 1899–1969 Diaries online.[61]
Claude Mauriac Unknown 69 years 1927–1995 Lejeune gives both 68 and 69 years. "We have yet to count the total number of pages, but the journal measures three and a half meters."[62]
Elizabeth Wynne Fremantle Unknown 68 years 1789–1857 41 volumes. Her two sisters also kept diaries.[63]
Queen Victoria Unknown [h] 68 years[i] 1832–1901 Over 100 volumes.[66] Her daughter Beatrice copied selected passages from the journals and burned many of the originals.[67]
Sanjōnishi Sanetaka Unknown 62 years[68] 1455–1537 His Sanetaka Kōki is also given a duration of 63 years.[69]
William Lyon Mackenzie King Unknown 57 years 1893–1950 Word count not stated; the manuscript exceeds 50,000 pages.[70]

William Matthews, in his British diaries: An annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942 (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1950) lists 400 diaries with a duration of 30 years or more.

Notes

  1. ^ Said to be a pseudonym.[1]
  2. ^ According to article from 2015.
  3. ^ According to article from 2022.
  4. ^ Total word count 5,632,524 words.[21]
  5. ^ According to article from 2016.
  6. ^ From 1 January 1895 to 31 December 1986, 33,602 days.
  7. ^ According to article dated 25 February 2025.
  8. ^ It is calculated that she wrote an average of 2,500 words a day, or sixty million words. However this estimate includes correspondence, notes, minutes, annotations and memoranda as well as her diary.[64]
  9. ^ From 31 July 1832 to 11 January 1901, 68 years and 5 months.[65]

References

  1. ^ Beard, Mary (14 May 2016). "A Life Discarded by Alexander Masters – the biography of a nameless person". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 May 2024.
  2. ^ Masters, Alexander (2016). A life discarded–148 diaries found in a skip. London: 4th Estate. ISBN 9780008130794.
  3. ^ Martin, Douglas (29 October 2007). "Robert Shields, Wordy Diarist, Dies at 89". New York Times. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  4. ^ "More Adventures of a Gay Roué". The Gay and Lesbian Review. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
  5. ^ Anastas, Benjamin. "The Most Ambitious Diary in History". The New Yorker. No. 1 November 2021. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  6. ^ Havlice, Patricia Pate (1987). And so to bed. A bibliography of diaries published in English (1987). Metuchen, N.J., & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. p.387
  7. ^ Hogan, Robert; O'Neill, Michael J. (1967). Joseph Holloway’s Abbey Theatre. A selection from his unpublished journal, Impressions of a Dublin Playgoer. Cardondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. p.vi
  8. ^ Wilby, Peter. "Tony Benn: Peter Wilby reads the diaries". The Guardian. No. 22 March 2014. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  9. ^ Benn, Tony (2007). Diaries 2001–2007. More time for politics. London: Hutchinson. p. ix.
  10. ^ Mücke, Ulrich (2016). The Diary of Heinrich Witt (vol. 1). Leiden & Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-27315-3.
  11. ^ Rosen, Robert (2011). Beaver Street–A history of modern pornography. London: Headpress. p.259.
  12. ^ Kominars, Sheppard (2007). Write for life: Healing body, mind and spirit through journal writing. Cleveland Clinic Press. p.56.
  13. ^ "Man in Changsha pens diaries for 74 years". People's Daily Online. 29 June 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  14. ^ Meschia, Karen (2010-07-01). "Naomi the Poet and Nella the Housewife: Finding a Space to Write from: The Wartime Diaries of Naomi Mitchison and Nella Last". Miranda (2). doi:10.4000/miranda.1238. ISSN 2108-6559.
  15. ^ Matthews, William (1950). British diaries: An annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p.259.
  16. ^ https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2022/08/16/50-years-a-diarist-9-million-words-and-counting/.
  17. ^ Lejeune, Philippe (2009). On diary. University of Hawai'i Press. p.187.
  18. ^ Dunaway, Philip; Evans, Mel (1957). A treasury of the world’s great diaries. New York: Doubleday & Company Inc. p.394
  19. ^ Ickes, Jane (1953). The secret diary of Harold L. Ickes (vol. 1) The first thousand days 1933–1936. New York: Simon & Schuster. p.v
  20. ^ Filbert, Jim (27 March 2024). "Oh my word!". Pike County Express. p.6. Access behind paywall.
  21. ^ "Anne Lister—Diary Transcription Project". Retrieved 8 July 2025.
  22. ^ "Anne Lister—An Introduction". Retrieved 8 July 2025.
  23. ^ Vivian, Frances (1987). Letts keep a diary–A exhibition of the history of diary keeping in Great Britain from 16th–20th century in commemoration of 175 years of diary publishing by Letts. London: Charles Letts & Co Ltd. p. 13.
  24. ^ Evans, Mike (23 December 2014). "Meet Mr. Gadd, 83, of Fontwell Magna in Dorset". Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  25. ^ de Bruxelles, Simon (10 August 2013). "Diaries record a life in mind numbing detail". The Times. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  26. ^ Vivian, Frances (1987). Letts keep a diary–A exhibition of the history of diary keeping in Great Britain from 16th–20th century in commemoration of 175 years of diary publishing by Letts. London: Charles Letts & Co Ltd. p. 23.
  27. ^ Cronenwett, Philip. "Dear Diary…". Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  28. ^ Blythe, Ronald (1989). The pleasures of diaries: Four centuries of private writing. New York: Pantheon Books. p. 106.
  29. ^ Mallon, Thomas (1985). A book of one’s own: People and their diaries. London: Pan Books. p. 76.
  30. ^ Sheridan, Dorothy. "Woven Tapestries: Dialogues and Dilemmas in Editing a Diary". The European Journal Of Life Writing. X: 46.
  31. ^ Adamson, Lynda (1998). Notable women in world history: A guide to recommended biographies and autobiographies. Westport, Connecticut & London: Greenwood Press. p. 243.
  32. ^ "Beatrice Webb's Diaries". LSE Digital Library. Retrieved 15 November 2024.
  33. ^ Wang, Fan (4 July 2016). "Man keeps 1.5-million-word diary in memory of deceased wife". ECNS.CN. Retrieved 23 June 2025.
  34. ^ "The diary of Samuel Pepys". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 29 December 2024.
  35. ^ "The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Daily entries from the 17th century London diary". pepysdiary.com. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
  36. ^ Sage, Lorna (1999). The Cambridge guide to women’s writing in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 252.
  37. ^ Quinn, Anthony (5 November 2015). "A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt edited by Simon Garfield". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 December 2024.
  38. ^ "Longest kept diary". Guinness World Records. Retrieved 8 September 2022. The books in the photo are not his actual diaries.
  39. ^ Loftus, Ernest. Diary 1986. Thurrock Museum. The final extant diary is for 1986, final entry is on Wednesday 31 December. Inspection made 9 July 2024.
  40. ^ Free, Cathy (9 February 2025). "Woman, 100, has journaled every day for 90 years: 'No excuse for me not to'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 18 June 2025. On the day of publication, Riski had kept her diary for 89 years, not 90.
  41. ^ Patel, Khushi (13 February 2025). "100-Year-Old Woman Has Journalled Every Single Day for 90 of Those; Nearly 33,000 Entries Later, She Is Still at It. Evie Riski's Diary: A Stunning Time Capsule of a Lifetime of Events". Times Now. Retrieved 25 February 2025.
  42. ^ Matthews, William (1950). British diaries: An annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 2.
  43. ^ "Anne J. Perkins Diaries". TriCollege Libraries Archives & Manuscripts. Retrieved 9 March 2025.
  44. ^ Batts, John Stuart (1976). British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth century: An annotated listing. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 106.
  45. ^ Matthews, William (1950). British diaries: An annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 1.
  46. ^ Batts, John Stuart (1976). British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth century: An annotated listing. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 11.
  47. ^ Batts, John Stuart (1976). British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth century: An annotated listing. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 191.
  48. ^ Matthews, William (1950). British diaries: An annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 113.
  49. ^ Batts, John Stuart (1976). British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth century: An annotated listing. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 48.
  50. ^ Batts, John Stuart (1976). British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth century: An annotated listing. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 184.
  51. ^ Bitton, Davis (1977). Guide to Mormon diaries and autobiography. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press. p. 9–10.
  52. ^ Matthews, William (1950). British diaries: An annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 154.
  53. ^ Ponsonby, Arthur (1927). More English diaries. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. p. 158–161.
  54. ^ Matthews, William (1950). British diaries: An annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 225.
  55. ^ Batts, John Stuart (1976). British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth century: An annotated listing. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 154.
  56. ^ Matthews, William (1950). British diaries: An annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 212.
  57. ^ Ponsonby, Arthur (1925). English diaries: A review of English diaries from the sixteenth to the twentieth century with an introduction on diary writing. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. p. 45–54.
  58. ^ Batts, John Stuart (1976). British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth century: An annotated listing. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 122.
  59. ^ Batts, John Stuart (1976). British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth century: An annotated listing. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 134.
  60. ^ Batts, John Stuart (1976). British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth century: An annotated listing. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 168.
  61. ^ "Diaries, 1899-1969". Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts. Retrieved 15 June 2024.
  62. ^ Lejeune, Philippe (2009). On diary. University of Hawai'i Press. p. 185 & 187.
  63. ^ Fremantle, Anne (1982). The Wynne diaries–The adventures of two sisters in Napoleonic Europe. Oxford University Press. p. vii, viii, xix.
  64. ^ Hibbert, Christopher (1985). Queen Victoria in her letters and journals–A selection. New York: Viking Penguin Inc. p.1
  65. ^ Vivian, Frances (1987). Letts keep a diary–A exhibition of the history of diary keeping in Great Britain from 16th–20th century in commemoration of 175 years of diary publishing by Letts. London: Charles Letts & Co Ltd. p. 11.
  66. ^ Ponsonby, Arthur (1923). A English diaries–A review of English diaries from the sixteenth to the twentieth century with an introduction on diary writing. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.
  67. ^ Hibbert, Christopher (1985). Queen Victoria in her letters and journals–A selection. New York: Viking Penguin Inc. p.5
  68. ^ Yamamura, Kozo (2006). The Cambridge history of Japan (vol. 3) Medieval Japan. Cambridge University Press. p. 183–184.
  69. ^ Plutschow, Herbert E. (1977). Japanese travel diaries of the Middle Ages. p. 34.
  70. ^ "Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King". Library and Archives Canada. February 28, 2013. Archived from the original on 16 April 2018. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
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