Overview
Samuel Pepys, a highly respected English naval official, wrote his famous Diary from 1660 to 1669. Since it was first published in the early 1800's, the Diary has provided readers with a vivid picture of an exciting period in English history.
As suggested in this fictional newspaper report, however, Pepys would have been outraged at the publication of his Diary, which was never meant to be published or read by others. To ensure its confidentiality, Pepys wrote his Diary in a combination of shorthand, foreign words and phrases, and contractions of his own invention. Pepysís observations are quite frank and personal, and in general they give us a first-hand account of what life was like for an ambitious young civil servant at the time of the Restoration. Because he left such a detailed and intimate diary, we know more about the life of Pepys than we do of any other English person of his time.