He spent a quarter of a century chronicling his life in five-minute segments. In his journal he faithfully recorded his reflections on God and his every visit to the lavatory. He even taped a nostril hair to its pages so that future scientists can study his DNA.
He slept for just two hours at a time so that he could record his dreams. He had three dozen ways of describing the act of urination. At his most prolific, he wrote three million words a year.
Now the Rev Robert Shields has died, aged 89, leaving a 37.5 million-word document that fills 91 boxes.
Monty Shields, 78, told The Times that his brother’s writing was helped by their father being the 1904 world champion in speed typing. “He did not spend as much time on it as you might think because he could type very fast and think very quickly and practically had a photographic memory.”
Mr Shields, a Protestant minister and teacher, died of a heart attack on October 15 at his home in Washington state. He had hoped that future historians would find his diary valuable.
He once told an interviewer: “Maybe by looking into someone’s life at that depth, every minute of every day, they will find out something about all people. I don’t know. No way to tell.”
His diary is almost 30 times longer than Samuel Pepys’s classic journal of 17th-century London, which runs to 1.25 million words. It far exceeds the colourful 21 million-word diary left by Edward Robb Ellis, an American newspaper reporter who died in 1998, aged 87, after recording his life for 70 years.
Guinness World Records does not record the longest diary, but lists a 91-year chronicle written by Colonel Ernest Loftus in Zimbabwe from 1896 to 1987. Mr Shields first started writing a diary when he was 17 to chronicle a romance, but soon gave up. He did not resume in earnest until he was 54.
He also wrote a book about a robbery that became the basis for Elvis Presley’s first film, Love Me Tender. He wrote in his thermal underwear at a desk surrounded by six electric typewriters, taking turns on each machine.
The journal contains a bewildering array of details, ranging from his blood pressure readings to every piece of junk mail he received. “It is an uninhibited diary,” he once said. “It is spontaneous. I type it as it comes and I don’t correct it and I don’t edit it.”
He had to stop typing in 1996 when he suffered a disabling second stroke; his wife soon tired of taking dictation. He donated his diary to Washington State University in 1999 on condition that it will not be read for 50 years. “Some people would say ‘Well, he’s a nut’,” he said in 1995. “Maybe I am.”
89岁的美国男子罗伯特希尔兹与世长辞，留下了91箱共3750万字的日记。
在长达25年的日记生涯中，罗伯特几乎每隔5分钟就记录一次人生。他忠实地记录下自己对上帝的想法以及每次上厕所的过程。他甚至在日记本中粘了根鼻毛，以便科学家日后研究其DNA。这个一天只睡两小时的人一年最多曾写下300万字。
身为新教牧师兼教师的罗伯特写下的日记堪称最长，他17岁开始写日记，记述了当时的一段恋情，之后不久他就停笔了，直到54岁才重新拾笔。罗伯特曾经表示，希望自己的日记对未来历史学家的研究有所帮助，因为透过一个人的日常生活，历史学家能够发现一些人类的共性。（沈珺）
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