'A brilliantly entertaining and revealing new transcription of Pepys's diary' Claire Tomalin
A collection of the most personal aspects of Samuel Pepys' diaries, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of their publication
The Diary of Samuel Pepys is the most celebrated personal journal in the English language. His candid revelations as he forged his career as a civilian naval official in Restoration London have fascinated readers ever since the first selection was published in 1825.
The Confessions of Samuel Pepys focuses on Pepys's controversial private life for a contemporary readership, by charting his varied and complex relationships with women. They included his wife Elizabeth whom he both loved and treated abominably, their domestic servants, the mistresses whom he secretly visited in Westminster and Deptford and other places, a host of other opportunistic encounters, the great ladies of the court whom he ogled, and the actresses and other female friends whose company he delighted in and combined with casual flirting and petting. All these he recounted in shorthand, often disguising the more salacious occasions in his own cryptic Franco-Latino polyglot or with a primitive system of extraneous consonants.
Most of these controversial entries were excised from 19th century editions, but all are featured here in completely new transcriptions and Pepys's secret code translated, following fresh forensic examination, from the original shorthand diary. The Confessions of Samuel Pepys also reveals how all previous transcribers of the diary and many of his biographers have deliberately massaged Pepys's reputation.
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The Confessions of Samuel Pepys 9780349147406 Hardback
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De la Bedoyere
The book contains much less translated Pepys than I expected. The translations are good, but the Pepys excerpts are 10% of the total, maybe less. The rest is commentary and apparatus, which is interesting, but not what I was hoping for.
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The Confessions of Samuel Pepys
My first encounter with Pepys was at school and of course we did not read about his sexual extravagances. The Penguin selection of his diaries is a good precis of the immense oeuvre and is a good introduction to the mind of the man and his daily life whereas the Confessions centres almost exclusivel…
My first encounter with Pepys was at school and of course we did not read about his sexual extravagances. The Penguin selection of his diaries is a good precis of the immense oeuvre and is a good introduction to the mind of the man and his daily life whereas the Confessions centres almost exclusively on his sexual incontinence and could give the impression that there is nothing else to the man but lust. The Confessions is a book that should be read affter one has gained a wider knowledge of what Pepys himself was really like. I found the book very readable and incredibly well researched and reading the extensive notes is essential, but by recounting every sexual episode as a series one after the other I feel that the real Pepys is somehow lost. He was much more than a dirty old man. However there is no getting away from it and as Guy de Bedoyere demonstrates he certainly had his weaknesses.
- Authors:
- Bedoyere, Guy de la
- Year Published:
- 2025
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Format:
- Hardback
- ISBN:
- 9780349147406
- Number of Pages:
- 400
- Publication Date:
- 07/08/2025
- Publisher:
- Little, Brown Book Group
- Language:
- English
- Place of Publication:
- London
- SKU:
- 9780349147406