Birbla

Discussion summary

The discussion highlights writers with high output, mentioning Isaac Asimov, Charles Hamilton, and Agatha Christie, while noting some omissions of Eastern writers.

What the discussion says

  • Some commenters pointed out notable writers like Asimov and Christie.
  • There is criticism about the list omitting Eastern writers such as Arab, Chinese, and Persian authors.
  • The conversation mentions the high volume of work by Charles Hamilton and the use of dictation in writing.
“Isaac Asimov wrote over 500 books on various subjects.”
— Metricon
“Charles Hamilton wrote around 100 million words, equivalent to 1,200 novels.”
— slyall

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  • "writers who wrote the most in history"

    Proceeds to ignore Eastern writers (Arab, Chinese, Persian) who wrote just as much or more.

    by Ozzie_osman
  • There's an entire section on Chinese writers lol
    by brennanbrown
  • Ignored, or just unaware? Perhaps you could reach out to the author and point them to such writers.
    by otterley
  • Another to add to this list would be Isaac Asimov. Most well known as a Science Fiction writer, he actual wrote over 500 books (mostly non-fiction) on a wide variety of subjects.
    by Metricon
  • Left out Charles Hamilton

    It has been estimated by the researchers Lofts and Adley that Hamilton wrote around 100 million words or the equivalent of 1,200 average-length novels, making him the most prolific author in history. He is known to have created over 100 schools that were the subjects of his stories as well as writing many non-school stories. More than 5,000 of his stories have been identified, of which 3,100 were reprinted.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hamilton_(writer)

    by slyall
  • Came here to say exactly this. He wrote under so many pseudonyms he appeared to be an entire team of writers on his own.
    by Wildgoose
  • Thanks for this. I especially enjoyed the section on word counting software and word linking games.
    by __0x01
  • Surprised that Isaac Asimov wasn't mentioned.
    by chrisofspades
  • Interesting how much of this writing was dictated.
    by fellowniusmonk
  • Xianxia authors write a mind-boggling amount, probably because some are paid by the character. Surprised Bertrand Russel didn't make the cut.
    by casey2
  • Agatha Christie was also a high-volume writer; apparently, this was due to unreasonably demands in her contracts with her publisher, and she hated to be thus pushed.
    by jll29
  • Nicolae Iorga is not on that list, has around 1100 published books and between 12k - 25k articles
    by dobreandl
  • More importantly:

    > Welcome to brennan.day! I respect your decision to not use JavaScript. You can read here for more information about what functionality is disabled and why.

    by 6LLvveMx2koXfwn
  • Not my "cup of tea", but certainly a record holder is Agatha Christie whose 66 detective novels and 15 short-story collections have sold over two billion copies, an amount surpassed only by the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare.

    In years past, my preferred crime writer was Walter Mosley, who wrote the Easy Rawlins series among his output of 70 novels. A Jewish African-American, he was at one time a computer programmer. He turned to novel writing at 35 years of age.

    by pdm55
  • Another prolific English author (of mostly children's books) was Enid Blyton who wrote somewhere between 700 and 800 books.
    by ghaff
  • lol i clicked on the article prepared to be angry that GK Chesterton wasn't mentioned and he was the first one mentioned. His collected works run to at least 37 volumes:

    https://www.chesterton.org/store/product/volume-xxxvii/

    i have the first four

    by recursivedoubts
  • Except he referred to him as G.J. Chesterton.
    by damontal
  • Interestingly, several internet posters are in the same range as GK Chesterton and that includes HN's tptacek, Stack Overflow's Jon Skeet.

    There's people who've written 2x to 4x more than Chesterson like James Dean, and did so in just 7 years.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/1ggcxle/how_lon...

    by socalgal2
  • When your job is to produce writings every week, you produce a ton of writings.

    About 15 volumes in I started to realize I’d read most of what he had to say; but it was still entertaining each time.

    Given his size, perhaps he was the Largest Language Model.

    by bombcar