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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Biography - this review refers to all three volumes.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Samuel Pepys: The Man in the Making, 1633-1669 (v. 1) (Paperback)
The three volumes that make up Bryant's biography of Pepys are a delight to any reader who wishes to step back in time and immerse him or herself in another era. Bryant covers not only the period which Pepys himself chronicles in his diary, but also provides the "prequel" and "sequel" of the life before and after. The amount of detail available for these periods is quite staggering but always lively and, as with the diary itself, one has the feeling of being an eyewitness to history. Not only are we treated to the grand spectacles - the return of Charles II, the Plague and the Great Fire - but also to more mundane details that touch us across the centuries, sometimes by their familiarity, sometimes by their sense of anxiety and sometimes by their immediacy. Pepys often comes across, by his own admission, as venal and lecherous, but he also demonstrates loyalty, courage and generosity. His patient support of his brother-in-law, Balty, his fears for his possible loss of sight, his sorrow at his too-early loss of is wife, his simple pleasure in playing music with his in-house musician, all make him love him as if we knew him personally. But in addition we see Pepys grow in stature as an executive, as a man of action and as a man of principle. We see him shouldering the burden of naval administrative reform, standing his ground under parliamentary enquiry, journeying to Tangier to wind up affairs there, sticking to his principles and his friends, and displaying loyalty to his patrons, at a time of political and religious witch-hunting - and even hiding himself in a tavern to gain evidence of his most dangerous enemy plotting against him. This splendid biography has much of the richness and sense of period of Churchill's "Marlborough" and at the end leaves the reader feeling that they have known a man as fallible as themselves, but probably, on balance, a great deal better. A marvellous book - buy, beg, borrow or steal all three volumes!
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