Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 50: February 1666-67
Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 50: February 1666-67
Translated by Mynors Bright
February 1666-67 finds Samuel Pepys in the anxious aftermath of the Great Fire, navigating a London still smoldering in more ways than one. As Clerk of the Acts at the Navy Board, he manages the logistics of a war with the Dutch while the city rebuilds around him. This volume captures Pepys at his most human: fretting over his wife's moods, gossiping about friends' secret affairs, watching Prince Rupert undergo a brutal medical procedure, and lying awake wondering whether peace will hold. His diary entries move from the grand (negotiations that could end the war, the reshaping of London's streets) to the intimate (his own insecurity, his pleasure at a good play, his guilt over small sins). What makes Pepys indispensable is not just his front-row seat to history but his total lack of polish. He is vain, anxious, curious, and utterly contemporary in his self-scrutiny. Four centuries later, reading him feels less like studying the past than intercepting a very literate friend's late-night thoughts.
