Looking around second-hand bookshops is something that I enjoy very much. Recently I came across a copy of “Everybody’s Pepys” (1927), an abridged version of the diary. It is illustrated by E. H. Shepard, better known for drawing ‘Winnie The Pooh’. For £2 it proved a very interesting read.
Samuel Pepys wrote his famous diary in London between 1660 (aged 27) and 1669. He was a senior civil servant. It was written in shorthand and never intended for publication. Pepys expresses personal opinions about individuals, the quality of sermons and his eye for women. We learn also of the Plays he attended, the plate he purchased and the food he ate, not to mention the quantity of drink consumed.
The diary contains important eye-witness accounts of the Restoration of the Monarchy (1660), the Plague (1665) and Great Fire of London (1666).
There is also mention of places in Essex. For example, “This day comes news from Harwich that the Dutch fleete are all in sight …” (21 June 1667). In another, “I went home with Sir G Smith to dinner sending for one of my barrels of oysters, which was good, though come from Colchester where the plague hath been so much” (24 November 1665).
Pepys stayed in Epping overnight (27 / 28 February 1660) having accompanied his brother to Cambridge University. He wrote:
“… and so that night, the road being pretty good but the weather rainy, to Epping, where we sat and played a game at cards, and after supper, and some merry talk with a plain bold maid of the house, we went to bed.
“Up in the morning, and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was a-mending; by the same token the boy left the hole as big as it was before. Then to horse, and for London through the forest”.
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