This is a list of diarists.

• John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, statesman, diplomat
• John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States, statesman, diplomat
• James Agate, writer and critic
• Louisa May Alcott, novelist
• Isaac Ambrose, Puritan
• Henri-Frederic Amiel, philosopher, poet, and critic
• Martha Ballard, midwife and healer
• W. N. P. Barbellion, sufferer of multiple sclerosis
• Marie Bashkirtseff (1858–1884), painter and sculptor
• Libby Beaman
• Peter Hill Beard, photographer in Africa
• Tony Benn, British politician
• Arnold Bennett, novelist
• Violet Bonham Carter, British politician, daughter of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith
• Stanley Booth, chronicled his personal experiences with music personalities of the 1960s and 1970s
• James Boswell, chronicler of Samuel Johnson
• Fanny Burney, novelist
• Jim Carroll, author, poet, and musician
• Mary Chesnut, described life in South Carolina during the American Civil War
• Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's foreign minister
• Kurt Cobain, rock musician, Nirvana's lead singer
• Richard Crossman, British politician and writer
• George Bubb Dodington, British politician and nobleman
• Edward Robb Ellis, writer and reporter
• Kitty May Ellis, American diarist
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer
• John Evelyn, writer and gardener
• Zlata Filipović, diarist in Sarajevo during the Yugoslav war
• Anne Frank, hid from the Nazis during World War II
• Max Frisch, playwright and novelist
• Buckminster Fuller, designer and engineer
• Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's Propaganda Minister
• Eugénie de Guérin
• Charlotte Forten Grimké, abolitionist and women's rights activist
• Philip Henslowe, Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur
• Etty Hillesum, young Jewish victim of Nazi Germany
• Arthur Crew Inman, author of a 17-million word diary
• Alice James, sister of Henry James and William James: lived in England during the 1880s and 1890s
• Carolina Maria de Jesus, Brazilian slum survivor
• Franz Kafka, writer
• Frida Kahlo, painter
• Francis Kilvert, described rural Victorian life
• William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canadian prime minister
• Victor Klemperer, professor of literature, described life as a Jew under the Nazis
• Selma Lagerlöf, first female winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
• James Lees-Milne, biographer and historian, secretary of the Country House Committee of the National Trust 1936-1950
• Elisabeth Leseur
• Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of the aviator, kept diaries her whole life and describes in detail what the family experienced as a result of the kidnapping of their child
• Courtney Love, actress and rock musician
• Thomas Mann, German novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
• Katherine Mansfield, author
• Matsuo Basho, haiku and renga poet also known for his travel diaries
• Michinaga, 11th century de facto Japanese ruler
• Alanis Morissette, canadian singer-songwriter
• Helena Morley (1880–1970), described life as a teenage girl in the Brazilian town of Diamantina during the 1890s
• Roger Morrice, Puritan minister and political journalist
• Arthur Munby, Victorian poet, barrister, and solicitor
• Anaïs Nin, lover of Henry Miller, pornographer and poet: also known for her erotica
• Joe Orton, playwright
• Samuel Pepys, civil servant
• Sylvia Plath, poet
• James K. Polk, 11th President of the United States
• Ned Rorem, composer
• Henry Rollins, singer for Black Flag
• May Sarton, poet and novelist
• Siegfried Sassoon, poet and author
• Sir Walter Scott, novelist
• George Bernard Shaw, Nobel Prize-winning playwright
• Emily Shore
• Frances Stevenson, mistress and second wife of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
• George Templeton Strong (1820–1875), New York lawyer
• Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), author and philosopher
• Hester Thrale (1740–1821), author, friend and confidante of Samuel Johnson
• Sophia Tolstoy, wife of Russian author Leo Tolstoy: they read each other's diaries
• Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva, poet and writer
• Cosima Wagner, daughter of Franz Liszt, second wife of Richard Wagner
• Richard Wagner, composer
• Opal Whiteley, author, naturalist and subject of several books, including one by Benjamin Hoff
• Kenneth Williams, comic actor
• Edmund Wilson, writer and critic
• Otto Wolf, hid from the Nazis during World War II
• James Woodforde, eighteenth century English clergyman
• Wilford Woodruff, fourth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Virginia Woolf, author and feminist
• Dorothy Wordsworth, poet, sister of William Wordsworth
• Zina D. H. Young, third President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Fake diaries

• Hitler Diaries

External links

• The Virtual Yesterday Diary Database Project: http://www.vyes.org
• Exploratoria: http://www.exploratoria.com

Diarists | Lists of writers