Samuel Pepys the Man in the Making

by Arthur Bryant

Arthur Bryant set out to reconstruct the life and times of Samuel Pepys from the vast collection of documents which this remarkable man left behind. He took over the papers of the two Pepysian scholars who had previously attempted this unfinished task, went through the whole of the unpublished Pepys manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, and used a number of previously unprinted passages from the diary. The result is a work of which Sir Harold Nicolson wrote that it "will live as among the best of English biographies." This first volume tells the story of Pepys' early work and the stranger one of his married life. Covering the years 1633-69, it records the Restoration of Charles II, the great plague and fire of London, an economic crisis, and a European war. A work of meticulous scholarship, it is as thrilling as any novel. Though complete in itself, this book opens what is likely to remain the definitive biography of the Englishman who wrote the world's greatest diary, established rules that still govern the British Admiralty, and was the father of that country's Civil Service.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

Sir Arthur Wynne Morgan Bryant was an English historian, columnist for The Illustrated London News and man of affairs. His books included studies of Samuel Pepys, accounts of English eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history, and a life of George V.

Bryant's historiography was often based on an English romantic exceptionalism drawn from his nostalgia for an idealised agrarian past. He hated modern commercial and financial capitalism, he emphasised duty over rights, and he equated democracy with the consent of "fools" and "knaves"

Reviews

[Margie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exhaustive, thoroughly researched biography of the great English diarist, Samuel Pepys, which covers the years of his birth through the great plague and subsequent great fire of London, all of which Pepys recorded in his diary. His personal diary covered a span of nine years until tragically his eyesight was impaired and close work was painful. After that he continued his diary, but his entries were recorded by secretaries and consequently not as revealing. This is volume 1 and there are 2 more volumes (in the Oviatt, yay, Oviatt librarians!). Pepys rose from being a tailor's son to being revered as England's greatest "Secretary of the Navy" (Chief Secretary to the Admiralty).

[Rob Markley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and illuminating perspective on the times, made doubly so because of Pepys vital role in the reform of the navy and the subsequent importance of British naval power in the centuries to follow. Taken from the Pepys diaries turned into a narrative. I don't know what the diaries are actually like to read themselves?

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining and well-written biography of the earlier years of Pepys up to the end of his famous diary. I recommend reading this before the diary itself.