Customer Reviews

The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol. 1: 1660

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Walter Isaacson said that Ben Franklin was the Founding Father `that winks at us'.

Samuel Pepys was the first historical robust rascal I read that had a wicked, witty sense of humor that shines clear through the centuries, so that I felt he was winking at us too. Separated by a hundred years, these two huge men are joined by a sense of fun, by enjoying and living their significant lives to the very utmost. It shows in their actions as well as their writings - and no one is sure why Samuel wrote his diaries in such great and often unflattering detail, and in a code he designed himself - and in the obvious esteem their peers held these two public servants.

When we lived in London for about seven years my wife and two sons would often explore the city, and often took along one of the `complete' diaries with us and revisited - as one still can - many of naughty Samuel's favorite flirting, drinking and eating spots. As recently as 2009 my family was able to float down the Thames to an Inn that Pepys often visited and were still able to sit at windows on wooden benches and eat "whitebait and brown bread" as he did.

Spanning the several decades of his significant career in the creation of the British Navy, through England's own revolution and shortly lived Republic and the eventual return of the Monarch that Pepys served so well, the diaries (and there are several volumes) detail his day to day life in great personal detail that draw strong mind pictures of those dramatic times. The reader can "see" him hiding his wheel of Parmesan Cheese by burying it in the Admiralty yard, reporting to the King on the Great Fire of London, surveying and establishing His Majesty's Dockyards at Chatham and Sheerness.

Pepys offers the reader deep insight to parts of a rich, full life of many contributions and public service, of scandal and intrigue, of plots and flirting - a fascinating history.