I created new pages for Hawly (an employee of George Downing along with Pepys) and Will’s (Pepys’ favourite drinking house). These seemed to be cropping up a lot so it made sense to stop any confusion and give them separate pages. If you have other nominations for their own pages, let me know.
There are a few paragraphs about the site in today’s ‘Circuits’ section of The New York Times (half way down the page). And ABC 702 Sydney radio in Australia broadcast a recorded interview with me about Pepys’ Diary a week or so ago, although there are no online archives. Maybe that’s a good thing.
The Public Record Office in London is putting on a costumed reading of excerpts from Pepys’ diary on 13th February including music and a chance to look at the office’s Pepys documents. There’s also an exhibition running from 5th February to 31st May. More details here.
In an annotation I’ve now lost (sorry), someone asked for more links to pages for people and places other than those that already have footnotes in the 1893 text, so that readers can add annotations. This is something I’ve considered, because the Victorian footnotes are somewhat erratic. However, if I added such links for every person and place mentioned, I’d be worried there would be too many extra pages for incidental characters about whom we will never have anything to say. That said, if you have a desire to annotate a character or place that doesn’t currently have a footnote page, simply email me with the name and the entry in which they’re mentioned. I recently set up pages for Pepys’ wife and maid after just such a request, and it’s not a problem.
A few people (such as in these annotations) have asked that diary entries display the day of the week. The reason I haven’t done this before is because I’m attempting to keep the diary content as close to the original as the web format (and the translations through Victorian editors and Project Gutenberg’s processes) allow. Pepys’ diaries included the month and year at the head of a page and each entry was marked with just the date. Occasionally he seems to have noted Sundays, but not always.
So, the question is, do I include weekdays on each entry, and if so how? Feel free to discuss this below…
Do you use LiveJournal? You may or may not know there’s a Pepys’ Diary user. But something seems wrong with it becuase, if you scroll down, some days appear repeatedly. I’ve never used LiveJournal, so if you know what might be causing this, then do let me know!
If you read the diary via RSS, you should probably check in on the RSS feed of this mini-weblog too, so as not to miss out on changes to the site: RSS v0.91 or RSS v1.0. Although you’re unlikely to read this if you use RSS and never come to the site…
I’ve added a new page that lists the annotations posted to all diary entries and the People and Places pages. Ideal for those of you who like to keep up with what’s happening on the site!