Despite this, The Diary of Samuel Pepys is considered a significant work of 17th-century literature, particularly well-known for its colorful descriptions of the coronation of King Charles II, the Great Plague, and the Great Fire of London.
Pepys’s narrative style is simple, informal, and spontaneous, recording “impressions of the moment without much respect for formal grammar” (Robert Latham, The Illustrated Pepys).
Most widely read editions of The Diary of Samuel Pepys, including the one used in this guide, present only selections from the massive work. Many of the racier passages of the diary describing Pepys’s love life were expurgated in published editions over the years, and a complete, uncensored version of the book did not appear until the late 20th century. For modern readers, the diary often gives fascinating insight into social and cultural changes for example, in the diary’s first year Pepys notes the arrival in England of a new drink, “tee” (tea).Īs a diarist, Pepys is honest about his own faults and failings, including his sometimes-uncontrolled temper and his extramarital dalliances. He presents his candid observations on famous personalities (from the king and queen on down), events both great and small, the theater, music, architecture, science, and fashions, among many other topics. Pepys makes note of what time he got up each morning, his daily schedule of work and leisure, what he ate, and the people he met-many of them belonging to the cream of London society.
It’s also a wonderful picture of London – no one else has written remotely as well about London in those days.” Read more.The diary is valued today as a firsthand document of upper-class life in Restoration England, an eventful period in which Pepys himself played a key role as naval administrator, member of Parliament, and confidant of two of England’s kings. Also for anyone who is or wants to be a politician he gives us lessons about how to manage other aspects of your life. Allowing for the fact that these days we don’t execute people who fall out of favour, and that someone falling out of favour is no longer in mortal danger, Pepys gives us many lessons about political life. And also, of course, he gives a wonderful picture of domestic life, warts and all…Pepys gives you a total flavour of his time. Pepys writes about the political and court life in the raw, and about commercial life and the relationship between commercial life – particularly the business of building a Royal Navy – and the politics. A bit of an Alastair Campbell of his time. He was not a politician in the modern sense, but he was something of a mixture between the politician and the civil servant. Foreign Policy & International Relations.
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