Samuel Pepys’s Diary: Finding a Place in Restoration London
Period: 1660
Pepys begins by measuring his prospects, recording visits, payments and household arrangements as national institutions change around him.
Literary reading guide
The diary begins in the middle of a life rather than with an explanation of its meaning. Pepys records a place to sleep, clothes to wear, people to see and work to pursue. That small-scale beginning gives the larger changes of Restoration England a human measure. Read his practical decisions alongside his judgments about himself: the distance between an appointment made, a plan disrupted and a private feeling is often only a sentence.
For a present-day journal writer, these pages offer a useful first exercise: write down a day before deciding what made it important. Name the room, the errand and the conversation. A diary is not obliged to open with a thesis about the person keeping it.
Excerpts from this period
Short excerpts from the public-domain edition named on the guide page. An excerpt that ends mid-sentence is an excerpt, not a whole entry.
1 January 1660
This morning (we living lately in the garret,) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts
Clothing and accommodation enter the opening entry before any attempt at a grand self-portrait. Source edition
3 January 1660
I went out in the morning, it being a great frost
A typical small weather note sets a day of errands in motion. Source edition
5 January 1660
I dined with Mr. Sheply, at my Lord’s lodgings, upon his turkey-pie.
The diary makes eating and companionship part of the historical record. Source edition
13 June 1660
So to Mr. Crew’s, where I blotted a new carpet
An awkward household accident remains memorable without being momentous. Source edition
16 July 1660
This morning it proved very rainy weather so that I could not remove my goods to my house.
Weather is important because it changes the day’s practical plan. Source edition
18 June 1660
My wife went this day to Huntsmore for her things, and I was very lonely all night.
A rare compact admission of loneliness follows professional activity. Source edition
29 October 1660
I up early, it being my Lord Mayor’s day
Public ceremony appears as part of a personal timetable. Source edition
2 December 1660
My head not very well, and my body out of order by last night’s drinking, which is my great folly.
The diarist records bodily consequences together with an unflattering judgment. Source edition
An essay by the TAEONIA editors. Quotations are limited to texts in the public domain.