Which Book Has Taken the Longest Time to Write?

There isn’t a single, universally agreed-upon answer, but a few famous books are widely cited as taking the longest time to write, depending on how you define “writing” (drafting, revising, or publishing).

Books Often Considered the Longest in the Making

• À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel ProustTime spent: ~17 years (1909–1922)Often considered the strongest candidate. Proust obsessively revised the work until his death; the final volumes were published posthumously.

• Finnegans Wake by James JoyceTime spent: ~17 years (1922–1939)Joyce labored intensely over language, structure, and invention, making this one of literature’s most famously difficult books.

• The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. TolkienTime spent: ~12–17 years (1937–1954)Tolkien rewrote vast sections while simultaneously building the history, languages, and mythology of Middle-earth.

• The Cantos by Ezra PoundTime spent: ~52 years (1915–1967)An epic poem rather than a traditional book, but notable for being worked on for most of the author’s life—and never truly finished.

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The Short Answer

If we’re talking about a single, unified prose work, In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust is most often cited as the book that took the longest to write.If we include epic or open-ended works, The Cantos wins by sheer duration.

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