Pepys Diary

by Samuel Pepys

Youthful, enthusiastic and ambitious, Samuel Pepys embodied the spirit of the self-confident and cheerful Restoration years. A man with an unquenchable thirst for life (particularly those parts of it that included food and women), his humor and perceptiveness have left us with the defining chronicle of the turbulent 1660s, a time of massive social upheaval, plague, and the Great Fire of London. He ended the diary in 1669 in fear of failing eyesight, and it remained in a shorthand-like cipher for over 150 years, until one John Smith, himself going blind, cracked the code that had protected its contents for so long.

3 Volume Set:
1660-1663
1664-1666
1667-1669

Genres: History, Memoir, Nonfiction, Audiobook

1083 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1996

About the author

Samuel Pepys was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament, who is now most famous for his diary. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under King James II. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalization of the Royal Navy.

The detailed private diary he kept during 1660–1669 was first published in the nineteenth century, and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London.

His surname is usually pronounced /'pi:ps/ ('peeps').

Reviews

[Cameron Rhoads · Rating 5 out of 5]

42.43 hours on Audible. An enjoyable listening of the diary of a preeminent Englishman during the Restoration years 1660-1663.

[Nick Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating in its detailed view of a life at the center of British politics in a revolutionary period (or, one might say, in its revolutionary rejection of the Cromwellian revolution). This was only volume 1 of (I believe) 7...

What I wish for, though, in reading Pepys, is a full companion volume with footnotes that spell out what is happening. While I love reading Pepys's immediate prose, for which of course he needs no such spelling out, I'd like to see what historians have made of the stormy events he alludes to. Does anyone know of such a companion volume?

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never was interested in this book. Then The Rest is History podcast hosts agreed that it is the best way to see what life in the 1600s was like ... and somehow I found myself getting the audiobook of the first few years. So far, so good!

[Liawèn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished year 1660, the rest in the new year but it’s of to a promising start 😊 I never knew that he was on board the ship that brought the king back to England 😄