Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 941.066092
EAN num: 9780004990279
ISBN number: 0004990277
Label: Harpercollins
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 450
Printing Date: 1995-12
Publishing house: Harpercollins
Sale Popularity Level: 3061867
Studio: Harpercollins
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events - the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Great Plague and the Fire of London - Pepys provides a definitive eyewitness account, along with lively descriptions of his socializing, his amorous entanglements, his theatre-going and music-making. Unequalled for its frankness, high spirits and sharp observations, the diary is both a literary classic and a marvellous portrait of 17th-century life.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
I purchased the audiobook read by Kenneth Branagh. He does a great job with the reading. The diary itself is very revealing. I learned a lot about the times in which Samuel Pepys lived.
Rated by buyers -
Very entertaining and enlightening. Pepys gives us a glimpse of what life was like in that period before the "Glorious Revolution" in England which was so important in the developement of democracy in England and the United States. Pepys was on the wrong side of that revolution - a loyalist to King Charles II, although he was never convicted of treason. Good thing, since there seemed to be a lot of beheadings, etc. in that era. Occasionally, it is not absolutely clear what Pepys is talking about, and sometimes the vocabulary is not easily understood,as language and customs have changed, but that is to be expected.
Rated by buyers -
When I started reading the diary, I expected it to be extremely boring and very old fashioned (seeing how it was written in the 1600's) - how wrong I was!!!
Samuel Pepys (pronounced 'peeps') is a human, funny, moody man who has his ups and downs like the rest of us. His narrative during the plague records his concern about neighbors, and his real sorrow when people he knows succumb to it. He also records his experiences during the great fire of London in 1666 and his very first mention of it strikes me as entirely human - he says that his maids wake him as they have heard of the fire and as it is not near his doorstep he simply goes back to bed as he's tired. He has arguments with his wife, and has cast a lusty eye upon the kings mistress for years! He also has, what I call 'mini affairs' where he kisses and fondles women quite regularly, (including his own maids) and seems to have no guilt about this whatsoever. Most mornings he 'drinks' his breakfast and at one point is outraged that his new wig is teeming with nits! An historical and very human read. Makes me realise that after 450 years we are all no different at all........
Rated by buyers -
It is kind of hard to match up these reviews of the Pepys' Diary with specific volumes, probably due to the nature of ISBN number numbers. However, this review is about Volume 10, the Companion to the 10 vol. set of paperbacks (complete edition) by the University of California Press. IT IS a valuable book indeed, being 1700 entries, alphabetically arranged, on the details about the people and places mentioned in the Diary. It has 626 numbered pages and genealogical tables and maps.
Rated by buyers -
There are on the Amazon site two excellent, informative reviews of the Pepys' diaries. They say far more than my own contribution.
I have read in and out of the Pepys' diary more than once. I did this in part because I have read many times that they are the ' best diaries' ever written. Without contending with that I found that they were not for me the most interesting. This probably shows more about my own shortcomings than it does about the work of Pepys.
Pepys' work is filled with description of the life of the time. It is rich in perception of the great city of London in Restoration times. It is filled with personal anecdote, gossip including that relating to his prodigious sexual appetite and activity. It is a busy, businesslike work. And it tells more about a world outside than a world in.
In the diaries I most love there is the quest of the soul to deeply understand itself and its relation to other people, and God. I find that the flurry of activity in the life of Pepys does not lead to this kind of reflectiveness. And thus for me the 'diary' is not a highly significant work personally.
Find other books like this one:
