By the time Anthon Lund was born in Denmark in 1844, Søren Kierkegaard was already producing his ideas on existentialism and Hans Christian Andersen had just penned the tales that would make him world-famous. In this environment, Anthon—who was raised by his father and grandmother after his mother's death—became a voracious reader by the age of six.

Lund converted to Mormonism, immigrated to the United States, and became an apostle and later counselor to the LDS church president—also Salt Lake temple president and Church Historian. His diaries cover the tensions between Apostle Moses Thatcher and his colleagues; the rejection by the U.S. House of Representatives of Utah's Congressman, B. H. Roberts; the stormy hearings over whether to seat LDS apostle Reed Smoot in the U.S. Senate; and publication of The History of the Church. Lund's accounts of the inner workings of the church hierarchy are at times formal but otherwise chatty, the latter quality making him a favorite diarist among historians.