CHILD OF THE CENTURY

By John Elson

Compared with Edward Robb Ellis, Samuel Pepys was a man of few words. In the nine years (1660-69) covered by his famous diary, Pepys produced about 1,250,000 words. That would be a mere warm-up lap for Ellis. In 67 years of recording his life and era, he has filled 35,000 or so pages with more than 20 million words, thereby gaining entry to the Guinness Book of World Records as author of the world's largest diary.

Not to mention one of the best--and most idiosyncratic. Columnist Pete Hamill, in a glowing introduction to the first volume of excerpts from this work in progress, called A Diary of the Century (Kodansha; 578 pages; $25), proposes, "There are human beings not yet born who will be helped in understanding our times through the diaries of Edward Robb Ellis." Far more than a personal memoir, the diaries record practically everything Ellis said, did, thought, felt, read or saw, accompanied by copies of newspaper stories he wrote as well as letters he sent and received. This glorious mishmash constitutes an informal history of 20th century America by an inquisitive writer who interviewed everyone from Harry Truman to Irving Berlin to 50-cent whores in the slums of New Orleans. Ellis has willed his diaries to New York University; some professional historians regard them as a national treasure.

So who is Eddie Ellis, and why has he been writing this humongous saga? A onetime newspaper and wire-service reporter, Ellis, 84, has lived for the past 28 years in a book-crammed (15,000 volumes) walk-up apartment in Manhattan's Chelsea district. Slowed by age and emphysema, he rarely ventures from home but is still full of vim and spunk; he spends an hour or more each day adding to the diaries, typing on an old Hermes manual.

The diaries began as a dare. As a 17-year-old high school sophomore in his hometown of Kewanee, Illinois, Ellis tried to enliven a cold, dull winter by proposing a contest to see which student could keep a diary the longest. One friend stopped after two weeks, another after three months. Ellis, like the Energizer Bunny, kept on going. And going.

From the age of 14 he wanted to be a reporter and writer. He entered the University of Missouri, flunked out as a sophomore but returned to earn his degree in journalism in 1934. Two months later, he got his first full-time job, in the New Orleans bureau of the Associated Press. The pay: $25 a week.

Even in the diaries' early entries, the virtues and defects of this lifelong enterprise are apparent. Ellis has always been candid about his own weaknesses--among other things, he was a troubled binge drinker. His plain Joe prose is enlivened by boundless curiosity, a wry sense of humor and a falcon-sharp eye for detail. At a hearing conducted by red-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy, for example, Ellis observed: "McCarthy has the slim hips of an athlete, a thick trunk and shoulders like a buffalo. Almost lacking a neck, his huge head seems perched on his shoulders. His mouth is long and thin, like a knife-gash in a melon."

After a series of reporting jobs in Oklahoma City, Chicago and elsewhere (plus Navy service during World War II) Ellis in 1947 was hired by the New York World-Telegram. Between Ellis and the Big Apple, it was love at first sight: "Silently, inside myself, I yelled I should have been born here." In Manhattan he met Ruth Kraus, an executive secretary who would become his second wife in 1955. Ellis' love for this petite, witty woman is palpable on these pages, and after she died of a heart attack in 1965 he was inconsolable. For two weeks there were no entries.

When Ellis began to sublimate his grief and fight off writer's block, the diary resumed with a detailed account of Ruth's final hours. Even today this nine-page narrative is almost too painful to read. With passion and precision, Ellis recounted his own panic and anguish, his family's frantic attempt to find a doctor, the last-ditch efforts of the hospital's cardiac team to save his beloved's ebbing life. Ever the reporter, he noted her official time of death: 10:40 p.m.

Ellis recovered to enjoy the friendship (and share the beds) of other women, but years after Ruth's passing he would still dissolve in tears on her birthday. He went on to write prizewinning histories (A Nation in Torment, about America during the Depression) and to serve as a consultant on a forthcoming encyclopedia of New York City. He is at work on a second volume of excerpts from the diaries; it will have, he promises, "more sex." Hard to imagine it improving on the first, which resembles a great primitive painting--limited in range but blessed with raw power.