Who is Samuel Pepys?

[raisinbread]

Who was Samuel Pepys and what makes his diary stand out compared to other diaries written in his generation? What are the chances that someone from 2003 will eventually have their diary become printed posthumously and garner an amount of fame? Especially with the rise of weblogs, online journals and the like with the advent of the internet.

[Morbo]

From this site:

Pepys’s skill lay in his close observation and total recall of detail. It is the small touches that achieve the effect. Another is the freshness and flexibility of the language. Pepys writes quickly in shorthand and for himself alone. The words, often piled on top of each other without much respect for formal grammar, exactly reflect the impressions of the moment. Yet the most important explanation is, perhaps, that throughout the diary Pepys writes mainly as an observer of people. It is this that makes him the most human and accessible of diarists, and that gives the diary its special quality as a historical record.

Instead of writing a considered narrative, such as would be presented by the historian or biographer or autobiographer, Pepys shows us hundreds of scenes from life - civil servants in committee, MP’s in debate, concerts of music, friends on a river outing. Events are jumbled together, sermons with amorous assignations, domestic tiffs with national crises.

The diary’s contents are shaped also by another factor - its geographical setting. It is a London diary, with only occasional glimpses of the countryside. Yet as a panorama of the seventeenth-century capital it is incomparable, more comprehensive than Boswell’s account of the London a century later because Pepys moved in a wider world. As luck would have it, Pepys wrote in the decade when London suffered two of its great disasters - the Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of the following year. His descriptions of both - agonisingly vivid - achieve their effect by being something more than superlative reporting; they are written with compassion. As always with Pepys it is people, not literary effects, that matter.

[Earthling]

Here:

The Diary begins at a time in English history that was obviously of great moment: Cromwell’s Commonwealth was collapsing and the exiled King Charles II was preparing to return. Pepys was close to the center of events, and in a position to observe the players in an extraordinary drama; in the years to follow he became a figure of considerable power and authority.

The most recent (12/29/02) NY Times Sunday Book Review also has an article on his biography, but I don’t know if you have to log in to see it or not (it’s free in any case).

[Earthling]

Oh, I should point out this bit from the NYT article:

He was the creator, in effect, of the modern British Navy

So, he was a Big Important Man in his own day, not just some schmuck pounding out a weblog.

[pesch]

What sets Pepys apart is his unusual frankness. He writes about his work, relations with his wife, the women he tries to bed, his enemies and friends at court. Even a weeklong gastric distress that resulted in a lot of farting. It’s all there.

But also, there’s something affecting about his day-to-day life. He’s not writing all this to make a point, or even to say anything in particular. And yet, he wants us to read his diary. The books were given to Cambridge after his death, the shorthand code it was written in is easy to crack. He wanted some measure of fame.

I read a lot of Weblogs and write one myself, and the only one that might come close to achieving the same sort of fame would be James Lileks, especially around 9/11. Historians might want to look over his work then, because it reflects events as they happen much in the same way Pepys gives you a kind of “you are there” feeling to the changeover from Cromwell’s Britain to Charles II.

Otherwise, I would nominate as another possibility
Edward Robb Ellis, whose diary tapped out at 70 years.. Only death stilled his pen.

[pesch]

*Originally posted by Earthling *
**Oh, I should point out this bit from the NYT article:So, he was a Big Important Man in his own day, not just some schmuck pounding out a weblog. **

Yes, but not when he was writing the diary. At the time, he had just begun his work with the Navy, learning the way things were done, and suggesting improvements. He was enormously curious about how ships were built. He studied multiplication and designed a special ruler for use in measuring masts. He negotiated contracts and argued with his fellow officials over who was trying to put on over on the king.

By the time the diary ends, he was in a substantial position, well-respected (or at least feared, he was a bureaucrat after all). But of course, he didn’t realize at the time just how far-reaching his reforms would take the navy. If his spirit is about, he would be enormously pleased with himself and his accomplishments.

[David_B]

For more information, you might want to check out the book, Samuel Pepys: A Life, by Stephen Coote. He goes into detail about much more than just the diary.

You can read a review of the book here. Frankly, I had no idea who the guy was 'til I read this article.

As far as the question of:

What are the chances that someone from 2003 will eventually have their diary become printed posthumously and garner an amount of fame?

I’d say the chances are slim. In fact, if anything it will be the reverse. First a person might achieve fame, and then a diary would be published.

[Lissa]

*Originally posted by David B *

As far as the question of: **
What are the chances that someone from 2003 will eventually have their diary become printed posthumously and garner an amount of fame? **

I’d say the chances are slim. In fact, if anything it will be the reverse. First a person might achieve fame, and then a diary would be published.

I have to agree with ** David B ** on this. In contrast to our own time, Pepys’ era was not one of overhwelming media reporting on the minutae of daily life. His * Diary * stands out because it is such an uniquely volumous, complete record of what life was like at the time for the ordinary man. Wheras today, we have movies, books, magazines by the boatload, and reams of other documentation of our time. No mysteries about the 20th/21st century will confound the scholar of tomorrow. Every aspect of our lives is almost tiresomely recorded somewhere. If anything, a scholar in the future will be overhwelmed by the amount of material we have left behind.

[Earthling]

*Originally posted by pesch *
Yes, but not when he was writing the diary. At the time, he had just begun his work with the Navy, learning the way things were done, and suggesting improvements.

Ah, yes, the risks of shooting off one’s mouth when only armed with a handful of cites (me, that is ;)). However, I should be clear about my point, which was that the reason Pepys’s diary survives to us is because he did achieve a level of importance in his life, even if he wasn’t a big-shot at the beginning of his chronicles, so that Cambridge was willing to keep his documents after his death, and others are interested enough to decipher them. It’s highly unlikely for a Joe Nobody to have his daily records make it much beyond his own demise.

[rjk]

I just saw this today: Slashdot reports that a UK blogger intends to post Pepys’ diary in real time. He started yesterday with Jan 2, 1660 and intends to go for the next ten years.

The OP and discussion are here with links to a news story and his site.

[David_B]

Jeez. Some people just have way too much time on their hands…

[rjk]

For those with just a little too much time on their hands, the Pepys-on-the-Web guy (Phil Gyford) has been interviewed on NPR. The page announcing it is http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_901875.html and the interview will be available in Real Audio format tonight.

[pesch]

*Originally posted by Earthling *
**Ah, yes, the risks of shooting off one’s mouth when only armed with a handful of cites (me, that is ;)). However, I should be clear about my point, which was that the reason Pepys’s diary survives to us is because he did achieve a level of importance in his life, even if he wasn’t a big-shot at the beginning of his chronicles, so that Cambridge was willing to keep his documents after his death, and others are interested enough to decipher them. It’s highly unlikely for a Joe Nobody to have his daily records make it much beyond his own demise. **

Point taken. I agree.

What’s funny (to me) is that I caught mentions of Phil Glyford’s work on one of the blogs and kind of shrugged at it. And yet, it’s apparently a big deal, now that he’s getting NPR’s attention.

Still, it’s an interesting idea: an entry a day. He’s also providing some annotations of the figures involved, and doing all the linking involved, so there’s a lot of work he’s putting into this.

[Shirley_Ujest]

Something that the rest of you should know, but I only found out when i was visiting friends in Merry Old England.

Samuel Pepys last name is pronounced **Peeps **.

(I had always thought it was **Pehp- iz **.)

That is all.

[Shirley_Ujest]

I should have phrased t his: Soemthing that the rest of you should know already, but I just figured out.

No intent to insult anyone was implied.