Alexandre Dumas did the same, at least in his memoirs. The manuscript for his complete memoirs would be something like 30+ volumes long, and he only got to writing about his life as a relatively young adult before he actually began writing succesful novels, and it is mostly because they are full of essays on all kinds of topics. Edited versions of his memoirs are published with most of the essays removed, and the longest is 6 volumes, while most are 1 or 2 volumes.
Alexandre Dumas did the same, at least in his memoirs. The manuscript for his complete memoirs would be something like 30+ volumes long, and he only got to writing about his life as a relatively young adult before he actually began writing succesful novels, and it is mostly because they are full of essays on all kinds of topics. Edited versions of his memoirs are published with most of the essays removed, and the longest is 6 volumes, while most are 1 or 2 volumes.