Best Selling Books by Samuel Pepys

The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events - the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Great Plague, the Fire of London - Pepys provides a definitive eyewitness account. Along with lively descriptions of his socializing, his amorous entanglements, his theater-going & music-making. Unequaled for its frankness, high spirits & sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece & a marvelous portrait of 17th-century life. Acclaimed by ''The Times'' as "one of the glories of contemporary English publishing" and by Sir Arthur Bryant as "complete perfection", the Latham and Matthews edition remains the authoritative text and provides the source for this magnificent Folio Society publication.

The essential anthology selected from Samuel Pepys''s famous diary.

This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide. At tredition we believe that a great book never goes out of style. Several mostly non-profit literature projects provide content to tredition. To support their good work, tredition donates a portion of the proceeds from each sold copy. As a reader of a TREDITION CLASSICS book, you support our mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion.

Parliament member and the trusted confidant of Charles II, Pepys details the Great Fire of London, the horrors of the Plague, the display of the head of Oliver Cromwell at Westminster Hall, more.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Samuel 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. In spite of its significance, all previous editions were inadequately edited and suffered from a number of omissions—until Robert Latham and William Matthews went back to the 300-year-old original manuscript and deciphered each passage and phrase, no matter how obscure or indiscreet. The Diary deals with some of the most dramatic events in English history. Pepys witnessed the London Fire, the Great Plague, the Restoration of Charles II, and the Dutch Wars. He was a patron of the arts, having himself composed many delightful songs and participated in the artistic life of London. His flair for gossip and detail reveals a portrait of the times that rivals the most swashbuckling and romantic historical novels. In none of the earlier versions was there a reliable, full text, with commentary and notation with any claim to completeness. This 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 perfect introduction to the Diary of Samuel Pepys, with Diary extracts arranged by subject. In this short anthology, selected from Samuel Pepys''s famous Diary, passages are collected together by subject, providing a fresh look at some of the themes that run through the massive complete work. Robert and Linnet Latham''s lively and skilful presentation allows the reader to become absorbed in a single topic without interruption, often providing new insight into Pepys''s private and public life. We see Pepys the man of fashion, the booklover, the musician, the theatre-goer, Pepys the husband and Pepys the public servant, at work and at leisure. From festivals such as Christmas and Twelfth Night, enjoyed with family and friends, to the great events such as the Fire and the Plague described so vividly in the Diary, Pepys''s life and times are revealed in all their richness and variety. And for the first time, we can read as continuous narrative some of the stories interwoven with daily events - the long entangled saga of his affair with Deb Willet and the tale of the Dancing Master. For anyone unfamiliar with Pepys, this anthology will serve as a delightful introduction, while lovers of the Diary will take pleasure in rediscovering favourite passages.

The correspondence included here represents the first selection of Pepys''s letters drawn from all possible sources to be published since 1933. Since the Diary does not cover this period, the letters enable the reader to follow Pepys'' early career on the staff of the Earl of Sandwich, his rise to greatness as Secretary of the Admiralty, and his retirement after the Glorious Revolution. Along the way Pepys fought battles with opponents of his naval reforms and enemies who tried to implicate him in the Popish Plot, while taking care of his various relatives and keeping up with an array of friends and acquaintances who included many of the great and famous of late-seventeenth-century England. The letters have been chosen to reflect all these aspects of Pepys''s varied and fascinating life, and include 30 never before published. They are accompanied by a running commentary, biographies of persons mentioned, a glossary, a chronology, and an introduction that explains how the letters have survived and analyses how they were written.BRu003eGuy de la Bédoyère is a historian and archaeologist with numerous books to his credit. His specialist field is Roman Britain but he has published three books for Boydell on the ''other'' seventeenth-century diarist, John Evelyn (1620-1706), including the widely-acclaimed Particular Friends: The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn which features all the letters exchanged by the two men over a period of 38 years.