The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the naval office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century England covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, wine and his peccadilloes. This Naxos AudioBooks production is the world premiere recording of the diary in its entirety. It has been divided into three volumes. ...
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The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the naval office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century England covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, wine and his peccadilloes. This Naxos AudioBooks production is the world premiere recording of the diary in its entirety. It has been divided into three volumes. Volume I covers the opening years of the Restoration and introduces us to many of the key characters - family, government and royalty. Pepys was there when Charles II returned to England, and he lived through those opening years of the Stuart monarchy, with its revenge on the regicides. He also recorded the reopening of theatres, and how he relaxed from the Puritan way of life.
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Add this copy of The Diary of Samuel Pepys 1660-1663 (1) to cart. $78.22, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2015 by Naxos Audio Books.
I was drawn to the diaries of Samuel Pepys for the rich sense of British culture and close knowledge of government and civil affairs. I am investigating the time period to fill in my grasp of the interests and activities. The flow of British culture is staid and even now the problems and quirks of the people are the same from the 17 hundreds to the twenty-first century. Their stubborness, their entrenched heirical society, their pompous formality continues. It is their weakness, their strenth and their folly. It is amusing also how the populace takes all these things in stride. This is a daily diary of important government affairs but it is easy reading and varied in its interests. Impressive in this is the information on the plague raging on in London in 1665 and the great fire that consumed it in 1666. Yet living through it, he notes in dispassionate yet sorrowful tones the deaths of one thousand this week, seventeen hundred the next. He is thankfully living away from the center of it. This diary is in multiple volumes, at least twelve and is condensed in the most recent printings. I have the complete work in two volumes. Some of the diary will be inconsequential to some, so the abreviated version would be sufficient. I wanted to see the flow. The full set in my two volumes is 2400 pages. I can pick it up to read at any point year by year. Knowing the people who suround him is helpful but usually an understanding develops in the reading. Footnotes tell more. The man is no saint, a womanizer and unrestrained in his drinking. It seems requisite to his duties. The book is valuable to me and should interest anyone who wants to grasp British culture and government. But it is much more and puts a human face on the disorder. Read a portion in any version to see if you want to continue. I have to rate the book highly but qualify that many would not care to follow it all. It is a prefference and not an indictment of the work. It is unique in its value especially for anyone researching the period. If the subject interests you at all, I recomend it to you.
