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Samuel Pepys is as much a paragon of literature as Chaucer and Shakespeare. His Diary is one of the principal sources for many aspects of the history of its period. In spite of its significance, all previous editions were inadequately edited and suffered from a number of omissions--until Robert Latham and William Matthews went back to the 300-year-old original manuscript and deciphered each passage and phrase, no matter how obscure or indiscreet. The Diary deals with some of the most dramatic events in English history. Pepys witnessed the London Fire, the Great Plague, the Restoration of Charles II, and the Dutch Wars. He was a patron of the arts, having himself composed many delightful songs and participated in the artistic life of London. His flair for gossip and detail reveals a portrait of the times that rivals the most swashbuckling and romantic historical novels. In none of the earlier versions was there a reliable, full text, with commentary and notation with any claim to completeness. This edition, first published in 1970, is the first in which the entire diary is printed with systematic comment. This is the only complete edition available; it is as close to Pepys's original as possible.… (more)
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- How did Pepys sleep when he says for instance that he slept with Creed? In the same
- When he had to overnight in a house somewhere, was he provided with bedlinen? Clean bedlinen? How often were bedlinen cleaned?
Interesting to note also that—at least at some periods—Pepys used to be shaved in the evening before going to bed.
20 JANUARY. To the office, where upon Mr. Kinaston’s coming to me upon business of Collonell Norwood’s, I sent my boy home for some papers; where, he staying longer then I would have him and being vexed at the business and to be kept from my fellows in the office longer then was fit, I became angry and boxed my boy when he came, that I do hurt my Thumb so much, that I was not able to stir all the day after and in great pain. (…)
28 JANUARY. (…) At Branford I light, having need to shit; and went into an Inne doore that stood open, found the house of office, and used it, but saw no people: only after I was in the house, heard a great dog bark and so was afeared how I should get safe back again, and therefore drew my sword and scabbard out of my belt to have ready in my hand — but did not need to use it, but got safe into the coach again. (…)
7 FEBRUARY. (…) But in the morning, doing of it and knocking up a nail, I did bruise my left thumb, so as broke a great deal of my flesh off, that it hung by a little. (…)
10 FEBRUARY. (…) and so by coach took up my wife and at the old Exchange bought a muff, and so home and late at my letters, and so to supper and to bed — being nowadays, for these four or five months, mightily troubled with my snoring in my sleep, and know not how to remedy it.
2 MARCH. (…) among other things, setting my wife and Mercer with much pleasure to work upon the ruling of some paper for the making of books for pursers, which will require a great deal of work, and they will earn a good deal of money by it — the hopes of which makes them work mighty hard. (…)
23 APRIL. (…) and my wife and I and the girl by coach to Islington, and there eat and drank in the coach; (…)
30 APRIL. (…) at night home and up to the leads; but were, contrary to expectation, driven down again with a stink, by Sir W Pen’s emptying of a shitten pot in their house of office close by; (…)
21 AUGUST. (…) and he told me of his own knowledge, being with some others at Bourdeaux, making a bargain with another man at a taverne for some Claretts, they did hire a fellow to thunder (which he had the art of doing upon a deale board) and to rain and hail; that is, make the noise of — so as did give them a pretence of undervaluing their Merchants wines, by saying this thunder would spoil and turn them — which was so reasonable to the Merchant that he did abate two pistols per Ton for the wine, in belief of that — whereas, going out, there was no such thing. (…)
19 SEPTEMBER. (…) Another time, he and pinchbacke and Dr. Goffe, now a religious man, Pinchbacke did begin a frolic of drink[ing] out of a glass, with a toad in it that he had taken up going out to shit — he did it without harm. Goffe, who knew Sacke would kill the toad, called for sack. And when he saw it dead, says he, “I will have a quick toad; I will not drink from a dead toad;” by that means, no other being to be found, he escaped the health. (…)