The_Diary_of_Samuel_Pepys

The Diary of Samuel Pepys ‘There never was a man nearer being an artist who yet was not one.” –Robert Louis Stevenson The Diary of Samuel Pepys is a without comparison in the vast compendium of historical nonfiction. According to Pepys Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge, Robert Latham, “His Diary is one of the principal sources for many aspects of the history of its period.” Found nearly 150 years after they were written, they laid bound in six leather volumes amidst the 3000 books Pepys left to the College. In 1825, Lord Braybrooke was the first to publish a selection from the original short-hand notes. Other decoded copies were made over the next 100 years. This was because Pepys was a secretive man, and his passages were concealed in other languages in trilingual fashion: Spanish, French and English. Pepys also penned detailed entries written in tachygraphic shorthand. It seems clear that the diary was never meant for publication. This cipher-text is usually done to hide extra-marital affairs for which he had many and probably was his major reason for keeping the diary. Pepys cries “Peccavi” (Latin: I have sinned) over and over again throughout the diary as if to inflict penance on himself. Lawrence Stone contends that the diary was a “means both of confession of sin and of checking upon [his] moral balance-sheet…brought up under Puritan direction…[he was] haunted thereafter by a lingering sense of guilt about [the] exuberant enjoyment of all the pleasures of life, especially those of the flesh.” Pepys was born in London on February 23, 1623, and his life spanned the period of the Restoration from start to finish. In 1649, he attended the execution of Charles I. Later, with the sponsorship of one of his father’s cousins, Sir Edward Montagu (who would later be made the 1st Earl of Sandwich), he attended Cambridge. He ultimately graduated from Magdalene College with his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1654. In 1660, Pepys began writing his journal, and continued until failing eyesight forced him to give it up in 1669. His entries contain details of his daily private and professional life but also reveal first-hand accounts of some of the most dramatic English historical events, including the Great Plague of 1665, the Great Fire of London in 1666, the Restoration of Charles II, and the Dutch Wars. It was the stout good sense of Samuel Pepys that occasioned him being appointed by Charles II as Surveyor General of the Navy Board. Pepys’ blunt realism then inspired important naval reforms, among them the creation of the Royal Hospital for seamen at Greenwich. This Royal Navy would later dominate the seas, with Pepysian common sense and work ethic helping to sow the seeds for British sea power in the 18th century. Pepys’ “blunt realism” in both personal and professional matters is exemplified in his diary entries. Pepys’ description of The Great Plague, also known as the “black death” (bubonic plague) is harrowing. Since the poorer areas of London were very crowded and unhygienic, the plague quickly spread through the population. On June 17, 1665, Pepys writes: "It stroke me very deep this afternoon, going with a hackney-coach from my Lord Treasurer's down Holborne - the coachman I found to drive easily and easily; at last stood still, and came down hardly able to stand; and told me that he was suddenly stroke very sick and almost blind. So I light and went into another coach, with a sad heart for the poor man and trouble for myself, lest he should have been stroke with the plague - being at that end of the town that I took him up. But God have mercy upon us all." Later in life, Samuel Pepys was a notable man. First a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1684, he then became its President. He was a friend and correspondent of Isaac Newton, John Evelyn, Edmund Gibson, Dr. Wallis, Vincent Sloane and even Dryden. He was a patron of the arts, and even composed many delightful songs and. His flair for gossip and detail reveals a portrait of the times that rivals the most swashbuckling and romantic historical novels. Pepys was a widely cultivated man, taking an interest in books, music, theatre, and science. He and his wife took flageolet lessons from the master Thomas Greeting and paid for their dancing lessons. Interestingly, Pepys calls Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.” Of the theme of the same play, contemporary Italian critic, Benedetto Croce, wrote, “love is sincere, yet deceives and is deceived; it imagines itself to be firm and constant, and turns out to be fragile and fleeting.” We are left to wonder if Pepys’ honest yet harsh critique of one of Shakespeare’s most well-liked plays struck a nerve in him given his frequent and salacious acts of infidelity. In his diary, Pepys describes another beloved Shakespearean play, Twelfth Night, as “silly.” Strangely, however, he mentions seeing the play performed three times during the 10-year period of his diary (1661, 1663 and 1669). What is now arguably the world's most famous diary began as a young Cambridge graduate's private chronicle. The complexity of the man is reflected in both his cyphered text and rich life. But what is striking about Pepys is that he is one of the first great realist novelists. He was committed to recording the totality of his experiences in a written detail that would not be matched until much later. Brunner, Emma Beatrice and Oliver Wendell Holmes Collection (Library of Congress). "My Wife, Poor Wretch" : Uncensored Episodes Not in the Diary of Samuel Pepys. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1928. D'Oyley, Elizabeth. English Diaries. London,: E. Arnold, 1930. Mallery, Richard Davis. Masterworks of Autobiography; Digests of 10 Great Classics Masterworks Series. Freeport, N.Y.,: Books for Libraries Press, 1970. Pepys, Samuel. Selections from the Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1660-1669. New York,: Fine Editions Press, 1957. Pepys, Samuel, Victor Anderson, Ruth Arnstein Hart, James David Hart, Hart Press. and Press Collection (Library of Congress). Three Merry Christmases from the Diary of Samuel Pepys. Berkeley, Calif.: Hart Press, 1972. Pepys, Samuel and Richard Griffin Braybrooke. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F. R. S., from 1659 to 1669, with Memoir. London, New York,: F. Warne, 1887. Pepys, Samuel and Richard Griffin Braybrooke. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. London,: J. M. Dent & sons, 1933. Pepys, Samuel, Richard Griffin Braybrooke and Henry B. Wheatley. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, M.A., F.R.S., Clerk of the Acts and Secretary to the Admiralty. Transcribed from the Shorthand Manuscript in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. 10 vols. New York,: AMS Press, 1968. Pepys, Samuel, Mynors Bright, Richard Griffin Braybrooke and Henry B. Wheatley. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. 9 vols. London, New York,: G. Bell and sons, 1893. Pepys, Samuel, Mynors Bright and Henry B. Wheatley. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. 8 vols. London, New York,: G. Bell; Harcourt, Brace, 1924. Pepys, Samuel, Mynors Bright, Henry B. Wheatley, William Sharp, Peter Beilenson, Walpole Printing Office, Limited Editions Club and Limited Editions Club Collection (Library of Congress). The Diary of Samuel Pepys. 10 vols. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1942. Pepys, Samuel, John Franklyn and Pamela Mant. Extracts from the Diary of Samuel Pepys. [Sound Recording]. n.p.: Spoken Arts SA 1028. 197-' Pepys, Samuel, Robert Latham and Linnet Latham. A Pepys Anthology : Passages from the Diary of Samuel Pepys. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Pepys, Samuel, Robert Latham and William Matthews. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Berkeley,: University of California Press, 1970. Pepys, Samuel, Robert Latham and William Matthews. The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A New and Complete Transcription. London,: Bell, 1970. Pepys, Samuel, Robert Latham and Samuel Pepys. The Shorter Pepys. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Pepys, Samuel and Richard Le Gallienne. Passages from the Diary of Samuel Pepys The Modern Library of the World's Best Books. New York,: Boni and Liveright, 1921. Pepys, Samuel and Richard Le Gallienne. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Modern Library ed. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Pepys, Samuel and Henry Morley. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. New York,: Cassell & company, 1886. Pepys, Samuel, O. F. Morshead and Ernest H. Shepard. Everybody's Pepys; the Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1660-1669. New York,: Harcourt, Brace & company, 1926. Pepys, Samuel, O. F. Morshead and Ernest H. Shepard. Everybody's Pepys; the Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1660-1669. London,: G. Bell and sons, 1926. Pepys, Samuel and Ian Richardson. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Sound recording. n.p.: Caedmon TC 1464. p1976. Pepys, Samuel and G. Gregory Smith. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. London,: Macmillan and co., limited, 1929. Pepys, Samuel, J. Smith and Richard Griffin Braybrooke. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. 2 vols. London,: J. M. Dent & sons, 1934. Pepys, Samuel, J. Smith and Richard Griffin Braybrooke. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. 2 vols. London,: J. M. Dent & sons, 1934. Pepys, Samuel and Henry B. Wheatley. The Diary of Samuel Pepys ... For the First Time Fully Transcribed from the Shorthand Manuscript in the Pepysian Library. St. ed. New York,: G. E. Croscup, 1892. Sova, Dawn B. Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds. Rev. ed. Banned Books. New York: Facts On File, 2006. Whitear, Walter H. More Pepysiana; Being Notes on the Diary of Samuel Pepys and on the Genealogy of the Family with Corrected Pedigrees. London,: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & co. ltd., 1927.