I have always thought I should read the diaries of Samuel Pepys, and that I'd enjoy them -- for the history, the art, and the sheer snobbery of being able to casually mention that "as Pepys described the theater/civil war/clothes/illness/Great Fire of London ..." (the problem being that, without having read Pepys, I don't actually know what he describes, aside from something about his bodily functions and the Great Fire). So his diaries are yet another thing I haven't gotten around to.
Problem solved: There's a blog that daily updates with an entry of Pepys' Diary from the associated day, annotated with the average temperature in London that month, Parliamentary activities that day, and links to explanations about the major players (and some minor). It started with his first entry (1 January 1660) on 1 January 2003, so we're about 5 years in. My plan is to jump in now and eventually read the whole diary in daily chunks alongside my daily blogs (there is a link to "read the story so far" to catch up).
Today's entry (from January 25, 1664/1665 -- the year confusion is because in his time the year changed in March, although in practice people had already begun to consider January 1 the first day of the New Year) is as charming as I could hope, about three long rambling run-on sentences, mentions of friends and ambitions and body parts.
2 comments:
What a cool, cool tip, Vivi. I've just bookmarked!
Kate is trying to give me yet another lesson in the complex process of how to log in. Hi!
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