- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (31 Aug 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0141390166
- ISBN-13: 978-0141390161
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
844,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #66 in Books > Biography > Essays, Journals & Letters > 16th to 18th Centuries
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Product Description
Product Description
Pepys's diary has long been recognized as one of the most remarkable in the English language, but it has been impossible until recent times to print it as he wrote it. Little academic work had been done on it and legal restrictions prevented the publication of its frankest passages in which Pepys describes his vigorous love life. In the pages reproduced here, the public events of the 1660s - the politics of the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Plague, the Great Fire of London - are interwoven with a diverting account of Pepys colourful private life.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an edition containing extracts from Pepys's ten-year diary, extracted from the original by Robert Latham in the 1970s and 1980s. (Latham edited the whole set in eleven volumes.) It is no more than a varied selection: there is much here and much left out, but enough to whet the appetite for more. (Claire Tomalin's biography "Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self" is a very good companion for his life either side of the diary-writing as well as setting the diary itself in good context.)
My problem with "The Illustrated Pepys", however, is the poor quality of the very illustrations that are supposed to set this volume aside from others of its ilk. All illustrations are contemporary and in black-and-white and are of generally poor quality.
The volume does, though, contain a good introduction. At the volume's end there is a chronology, a competent index and glossary, and a map of London of the time, but again of poor quality.
My problem with "The Illustrated Pepys", however, is the poor quality of the very illustrations that are supposed to set this volume aside from others of its ilk. All illustrations are contemporary and in black-and-white and are of generally poor quality.
The volume does, though, contain a good introduction. At the volume's end there is a chronology, a competent index and glossary, and a map of London of the time, but again of poor quality.
10 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having a keen interest in London and its history I was very excited about this book initially, but my enthusiasm waned towards the end thereof. It is interesting, but does not contain as much detail regarding, for instance, the Plague as I had hoped. I did, however, find anecdotes like the one about the man who was given a sheep's blood transfusion to pacify him fascinating (and bizarre).
Pepys himself is a strange character, and at times almost unreal in his contradictions. One part piety and morality and one part lust and meanness, he could have been created by a good novelist.
Another point of criticism: At times I struggled with Pepys' olde English and a longer glossary (separate from the index) would have helped in this regard.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
A great entry point to the reading of Pepys
14 Nov 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
It is a pleasure to be able, after a suitable time period - aided by "increasing maturity" - to reread Pepys, and the researcher and indeed, Pepys official librarian, Robert Latham presents an admirable selection of edited extracts in this, the illustrated, version of the main diaries of 1660 to 1669.
As the editor remarks, it is a great pity that Samuel never resumed his daily journals in the following years as it was that later period that saw the deposing of his King and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. It would have been, Latham said "one of the most important books never written."
Certainly, with Samuel Pepys as the author, it would have been personal, witty and more than a little "saucy"!
As the editor remarks, it is a great pity that Samuel never resumed his daily journals in the following years as it was that later period that saw the deposing of his King and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. It would have been, Latham said "one of the most important books never written."
Certainly, with Samuel Pepys as the author, it would have been personal, witty and more than a little "saucy"!
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