Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
- ISBN-10
- 0307427595
- ISBN-13
- 9780307427595
- Series
- Samuel Pepys
- Category
- Biography & Autobiography
- Pages
- 528
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2007-12-18
- Publisher
- Vintage
- Author
- Claire Tomalin
Description
For a decade, beginning in 1660, an ambitious young London civil servant kept an astonishingly candid account of his life during one of the most defining periods in British history. In Samuel Pepys, Claire Tomalin offers us a fully realized and richly nuanced portrait of this man, whose inadvertent masterpiece would establish him as the greatest diarist in the English language. Against the backdrop of plague, civil war, and regicide, with John Milton composing diplomatic correspondence for Oliver Cromwell, Christopher Wren drawing up plans to rebuild London, and Isaac Newton advancing the empirical study of the world around us, Tomalin weaves a breathtaking account of a figure who has passed on to us much of what we know about seventeenth-century London. We witness Pepys’s early life and education, see him advising King Charles II before running to watch the great fire consume London, learn about the great events of the day as well as the most intimate personal details that Pepys encrypted in the Diary, follow him through his later years as a powerful naval administrator, and come to appreciate how Pepys’s singular literary enterprise would in many ways prefigure our modern selves. With exquisite insight and compassion, Samuel Pepys captures the uniquely fascinating figure whose legacy lives on more than three hundred years after his death.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
By Samuel PepysRichard Le Gallienne’s elegant abridgment of the Diary captures the essential writings of Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), a remarkable man who witnessed the coronation of Charles II, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666.
-
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
By Samuel PepysSo after long discourse , to my full satisfaction but great trouble , I home by water and at my office late , and so to supper to my poor wife , and so to bed - being troubled to think that I shall be forced to go to Brampton the next ...
-
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol. 8: 1667
By Samuel PepysThis edition, first published in 1970, is the first in which the entire diary is printed with systematic comment. This is the only complete edition available; it is as close to Pepys’s original as possible.
-
The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A Selection
By Samuel PepysIn his diary, Pepys provides a definitive eyewitness account of the main events in 1660s English history, along with lively descriptions of his socializing, his amorous entanglements, his theatre-going and music-making.
-
Samuel Pepys: the Diaries
By SAMUEL. PEPYSPepys's diary gives vivid descriptions of spectacular events, but much of the richness of the work lies in the details it provides about the minor dramas of daily life.
-
The Diary Of Samuel Pepys
By Samuel PepysThis work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
-
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol. 6: 1665
By Samuel PepysSamuel Pepys was born in London in 1633, the son of a tailor.
-
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol. 7: 1666
By Samuel PepysThis edition, first published in 1970, is the first in which the entire diary is printed with systematic comment. This is the only complete edition available; it is as close to Pepys’s original as possible.
-
The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A New and Complete Transcription
By Samuel PepysSamuel Pepys is as much a paragon of literature as Chaucer and Shakespeare. His Diary is one of the principal sources for many aspects of the history of its period....
-
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol. 4: 1663
By Samuel PepysAvailable for the first time in paperback: the definitive edition of Samuel Pepys' famous diary.