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
External links
- The Virtual Yesterday Diary Database Project: http://www.vyes.org
- Exploratoria: http://www.exploratoria.com
Diarists | Lists of writers