This selection is from the new and complete transcription of the Diary of Samuel Pepys edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews, publised by Bell & hyman Ltd. ( )

I really enjoyed the perspective of events that this diary gives, and the added illustrations are wonderful. I have another copy, with no pictures, of the same book, and I am debating reading it just to see if it makes a difference in interpretation. I like the insight into Pepys himself (not a very likeable fellow, in my opinion) and into the world he called home. ( )

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”!

Pepys is the Man! ( )

The illustrations are scanty. ( )