The Diary of Samuel Pepys. - Softcover

Pepys., Samuel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1522946640 ISBN 13: 9781522946649

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

On 1 January 1660 ("1 January 1659/1660" in contemporary terms) Pepys began to keep a diary. He recorded his daily life for almost ten years. This record of a decade of Pepys’s life is over a million words long and is often regarded as Britain’s most celebrated diary. In fact, Pepys has been called the greatest diarist of all time. This is due to his frankness in writing concerning his own weaknesses and the accuracy with which he records events of daily British life and major events in the 17th century. Pepys writes about the contemporary court and theater (including his amorous affairs with the actresses), his household and major political and social occurrences. To this day, historians still use his diary to gain greater insight and understanding of life in London in the 17th century. Pepys wrote consistently on subjects such as personal finances, the time he got up in the morning, the weather and what he ate. He talked at length about his new watch (that had an alarm—a new thing at the time), which he was very proud of, a country visitor who did not enjoy his time in London because he felt it was too crowded, and his cat waking him up at one in the morning. Because Pepys recorded even minor details, we have a much more thorough understanding of what everyday life would have been like for the British upper middle classes in the 1660s.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

The diary which Samuel Pepys kept from January 1660 to May 1669 ...is one of our greatest historical records and... a major work of English literature, writes the renowned historian Paul Johnson. A witness to the coronation of Charles II, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666, Pepys chronicled the events of his day. Originally written in a cryptic shorthand, Pepys's diary provides an astonishingly frank and diverting account of political intrigues and naval, church, and cultural affairs, as well as a quotidian journal of daily life in London during the Restoration.

In 1825, when Pepys's memoirs were first published, Francis Jeffrey of The Edinburgh Review declared, "We can scarcely say that we wish it a page shorter... it is very entertaining thus to be transported into the very heart of a time so long gone by; and to be admitted into the domestic intimacy, as well as the public councils of a man of great activity and circulation in the reign of Charles II." Edited and abridged by literary critic and author Richard Le Gallienne, this edition features an Introduction by Robert Louis Stevenson.

From the Back Cover:

“One of our greatest historical records . . . a major work of English literature.” —Paul Johnson

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1522946640
• ISBN 13: 9781522946649
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 178