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Read on Project GutenbergThis collection distills Samuel Pepys's diary into a series of extracted quotations, organized chronologically by month and year. Rather than presenting a continuous narrative, the editor, David Widger, has isolated pithy remarks and vivid snapshots that reveal Pepys's unfiltered voice. The excerpts range from political commentary—"Commons, where there is nothing done but by passion, and faction"—to domestic tensions, such as "Supper and to bed without one word one to another." The selection emphasizes Pepys's eye for contradiction: he notes both the "mighty vanity" of public figures and the quiet absurdities of private life. Readers familiar with the full diary may use this volume to locate favorite passages, while newcomers will encounter a mosaic of 17th-century concerns, from fire and plague to court intrigue and marital strife.
Widger's editorial approach is explicitly utilitarian: he invites readers to suggest additions and provides instructions for locating full contexts via the Project Gutenberg search engine. The quotations are stripped of surrounding narrative, leaving only Pepys's most pointed observations. This format foregrounds his characteristic blend of candor and self-awareness. For instance, he admits "I am not a man able to go through trouble, as other men," while elsewhere recording "Never laughed so in all my life. I laughed till my head ached." The juxtaposition of vulnerability and exuberance is a recurring pattern. Without the connective tissue of daily entries, the quotations read like a commonplace book of Pepys's mind—a collection of his sharpest judgments, fears, and pleasures.
Political life appears as a theater of self-interest. Pepys notes that in the Commons "nothing is done but by passion, and faction," and observes that "every body leads, and nobody follows." His eye for hypocrisy is keen: a king who "resolves to declare the Duke of Monmouth legitimate" coexists with the remark that "Lady Castlemayne is compounding with the King for a pension." The excerpts also capture the precariousness of power—"Sorry thing to be a poor King"—and the cynicism of courtiers who "spare not to blame another to defend himself." Pepys himself is not exempt; he records his own "confidence, and vanity, and disparages everything." The political world, as distilled here, is a web of ambition, insecurity, and calculated performance.
Pepys's private life is marked by tension and small dramas. He notes "beginnings of discontents take so much root between us" and describes a night "through my wife's illness had a bad night of it, and she a worse." Money is a persistent worry: "Painful to keep money, as well as to get it." Yet there are moments of absurdity, as when a woman "take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her." Pepys's own foibles are on display—he finds his wife painted (with cosmetics) and "it makes me loathe her," yet elsewhere he admits his "intention to learn to trill." The domestic sphere is a stage for power struggles, affection, and irritation, all rendered in Pepys's unsparing prose.
Because this edition presents only isolated quotations, readers seeking the full texture of Pepys's diary—the gradual development of events, the interplay of moods across days—will need to consult the complete text. But as a reference tool or a sampler, it offers a concentrated dose of Pepys's voice: by turns shrewd, petty, delighted, and weary. The editor's invitation to submit favorite passages underscores the collaborative potential of digital publishing, making this a living anthology rather than a fixed canon.
There are evenings I open Pepys and feel the strange intimacy of a man keeping his own counsel, recording plague and mutton with equal care. It makes me think of that odd, affectionate compendium, A Bibliography of Bibliography; Or, a Handy Book About Books Which Relate to Books — Background and Themes, as if bookishness itself were a diary we were all quietly keeping.
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