Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
News about this site and other Pepys-related events.
Monday 21st July 2003
I’ve noticed recently that annotations seem to be drifting “off-topic” quite frequently. This can be interesting and enlightening but please do be aware that annotations should enhance the particular diary entry, not just now but also in many years time. The annotations about pasties and MAs have tended to stray rather off the beaten track, as have some of the parallels between diary events and today’s politics.
Thursday 17th July 2003
One of the first links on the front page of this site is to the Story so far page. This is intended to be a brief introduction to Pepys and his world, for anyone who’s just joining us as we progress through the diary. The lower third of the page is supposed to be a summary of what’s happened since the diary began but, as you can tell, it’s rather out of date.
Tuesday 8th July 2003
Glyn Thomas has pointed out that the Museum of London has a huge list of Pepys-related events happening in the city over the next few months.
Tuesday 1st July 2003
Half a year in… it seems like the diary’s been going a long time, but we’ve only just begun! Thanks to everyone who’s contributed annotations to the site — I’m sure I speak for many people when I say the diary has come alive thanks to the information and discussion posted over the past few months. Here are some statistics for you about the diary so far…
Wednesday 18th June 2003
Tina emailed me to point out that Claire Tomalin’s recent biography of Pepys is available at Amazon UK as part of their “3 paperbacks for £12” promotion (plus postage and packing). The small print reveals that you don’t have to buy three books — you can just buy one for £3.99 (plus p+p). Crafty!
Tuesday 17th June 2003
I’m sorry the 16 June 1660 entry was late in appearing… my computer developed problems just as I was about to enter another batch of diary entries. All OK now though.
Tuesday 3rd June 2003
A quick round-up of news and queries from my inbox…
Rafael was wondering where he could see an example of the shorthand Pepys used, based on Shelton’s. If anyone has any thoughts, ideally but not exclusively online, then please post below.
Tuesday 3rd June 2003
A quick round-up of news and queries from my inbox…
Rafael was wondering where he could see an example of the shorthand Pepys used, based on Shelton’s. If anyone has any thoughts, ideally but not exclusively online, then post below.
Tuesday 27th May 2003
Keith kindly pointed out an article in the Times Literary Supplement by Ferdinand Mount, author of Jem (and Sam) (Amazon US, UK). It is mainly a review of London’s National Portrait Gallery Pepys exhibition but also has interesting things to say about Pepys and some of his associates. I fear the link may only work until Thursday though, so be quick…
Monday 19th May 2003
Ed emailed me and wanted to ask everyone about their experiences of audio recordings of the diary. As this is currently the only place to discuss this kind of thing, it’s over to Ed:
Thursday 15th May 2003
Yesterday I altered the way the fonts on the site are defined, and wondered if anyone would notice. Todd did, so I thought I’d mention it here in case anyone else wonders why something’s different. Most people shouldn’t notice much difference, a few should notice some improvement, especially on small text and with browsers set to display text smaller than usual. I’ve tested it on most browsers on Windows and Mac OS X, but let me know if you have any problems.
Tuesday 13th May 2003
A while back Languagehat sent me a link to a site about handwriting in the 16th and 17th centuries. I set up a Background Info page for handwriting, but thought the site was interesting enough to point out here too.
Wednesday 7th May 2003
Already this year we’ve had three Pepys exhibitions in London. Now the British Library has an exhibition running until 15 June. Their site has a brief blurb:
Tuesday 6th May 2003
Unfortunately, some people don’t know when to shut up. I’ve decided to ban “Hhomeboy” from posting on this site. I’m reluctant to do so, especially as he obviously has a great deal of knowledge to contribute. He has refused to restrict his relentless pomposity and snarkiness masquerading as advice. I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve asked me to ban him before now and so I hope this doesn’t seem overly vindictive or authoritarian. He’ll no doubt take this as more “evidence” of my inability to take criticism, something that I hope will be news to all those whose welcome comments have benefited the site.
Wednesday 30th April 2003
I’d just like to remind people to be careful with their annotations. Recently there have been more errors appearing, more lengthy posts, and more annotations that should be in the Background Info section.
Monday 28th April 2003
Michael Filiksy let me know about a show that might be of interest. He says:
“This week the BBC Radio 3 show “Music Restored” presented a celebration of Pepys’ 300th death anniversary. The program(me) includes music of Pepys’ London (Purcell, Locke, Playford, etc.) interspersed with the diarist’s words read by an actor. There seems to be a gap of a minute or so at about 3 minutes, but stay with it and be rewarded. The commentary is by Lucie Skeaping, the host. BBC seems to archive these programs for one week only, so tune in before Thursday 1 May.”
You can listen to the show and read the playlist.
Tuesday 15th April 2003
You may have noticed a couple of small changes. First, any footnotes from the 1893 edition of the diary have moved from the right-hand column to below the relevant diary entry. Since adding the Background Info links to the right column the footnotes have been a little obscured and several people have missed them when they appear. The new position keeps the reading of each diary entry in a straight vertical line down to the reader annotations.
Wednesday 26th March 2003
A thought occurred to me recently… I was wondering if anyone was itching to write more about aspects of Pepys or the time he lived in. If so, maybe it would be worth creating a new section of the site for such articles. Every so often a new essay/article could be posted up and readers could, as ever, post comments. Any topic related to the diary or the times would be welcome (individual people, politics, language, fashion, etc.) and they could of course be rather longer than diary annotations. It might be a daft idea, or there might not be enough people interested in writing things — let me know what you think.
Friday 14th March 2003
You may have noticed the annotation format has changed, with the person’s name and the time now at the top. I hope this makes things easier for you.
Also, I’ve written something that marks which annotations are new since your last visit. It’s not foolproof, and because it relies on cookies(?) it’ll get confused if you use more than one computer or web browser to view the site. But I hope it’ll help make clear what you’ve yet to read. The Recent Annotations page is marked similarly.
Monday 10th March 2003
So it seems some people don’t want a discussion forum at all, and some think it might be a good idea. Given there appears to be little immediate demand, it seems a good idea to take a step back and look at what annotations should be. Having done that we can decide if our guidelines leave out other kinds of commentary that deserve an alternate home.