Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
As you can tell, the site’s had a lick of paint! Everything should be working OK now, so if you come across anything that looks broken, or that doesn’t work as you expect, do let me know (and tell me which web browser and operating system you’re using).
Some time ago I raised the possibility of readers of the diary adopting pages in the Encyclopedia and becoming editors of them. I made a few changes to the site that made this possible, and a couple of press-ganged “volunteers”, Jeannine and Todd, have so far given this a try.
Since the site started, most of the places listed in the Encyclopedia have had links to their location on Streetmap. I’ve now replaced these with a map from Google Maps which shows the location in the page, which is more convenient.
A. Hamilton suggested in an annotation that we could use a section in the Encyclopedia for information about the Pepys household. I’m certainly finding it hard to keep track of which servants are currently working there, for example.
As most readers are aware, I add new entries to the Encyclopedia section as we progress through the diary, as Pepys meets new people, visits new places, etc. Until now I haven’t included pages for all the plays he’s seen, but this was becoming an increasingly obvious omission. So I’ve created pages for all the plays Pepys has seen or mentioned so far and will keep it up to date like everything else.
Update: The first article has now appeared!
You might notice a few things around here have been tweaked. This is to make room for a new section of the site: In-depth Articles. This will, hopefully, be a home to occasionally essays about aspects of Pepys’ life or the world in which he lived. If you would like to write something that doesn’t seem to fit elsewhere (perhaps because it’s too long for an annotation or covers too many topics to find a home in the Background Info pages), either drop me a line or raise the idea in the discussion group. The first article will appear this week…
Kal Ahmed has been busy creating topic map of events in Pepys’ Diary. What is it? Kal takes the events of each day and transforms them into XML, a format that can be easily interpreted by computer programs. From this he’s generated web pages that, for example, show you when Sam sent and received letters, what plays have been mentioned, or what happened when he journeyed from Brampton to Hatfield.
The Story So Far section of the site is now up to date, providing a monthly summary of events in the diary. Hopefully this should help people who haven’t been with us since the start, who have to take a break from the diary, or those of us who simply need reminding of past events occasionally.
The old Further Reading page didn’t allow anyone to post their suggestions to it, so we were ending up with book recommendations scattered through the annotations. I’ve now created a new Further Reading section in Background Info, so if you would like to recommend something that isn’t already listed, feel free!
If you want to recommend a book but can’t see a page that’s right for it, do email me and I’ll add one.
It’s been suggested before, but the need for it has become more apparent as the diary goes on. I’ve created glossary category in the Background Info section for words that are used reasonably often, that need explaining, and that don’t have a more suitable category. “Link boy” is the only entry so far, and if you think of anything else (in past or future diary entries), just let me know. It should help cut down on anyone having to explain the same things too often!