Samuel Pepys
Detail of a portrait of the British Diarist Samuel Pepys by J. Halys, 1666.
On this day in 1669, Samuel Pepys regretfully made the final entry in his nine and a half-year diary, citing his deteriorating eyes as cause. Begun when he was a struggling young civil servant, Pepys's diary covers the beginnings of his rise to wealth and influence in Restoration England. It is praised not just as a priceless historical document but for a range of character, anecdote and detail that is Dickensian in scope, and just as readable. We learn the devices and dirty linen of those at court; of running from the Black Death and being singed by the Great Fire; of who wore this latest fashion to that popular play; of the best pub for anchovies or assignations; of the small, perfect things only a born storyteller would notice: "I staid up till the bell-man came by with his bell just under my window as I was writing this very line, and cried, 'Past one of the clock, and a cold, and frosty, windy morning ...

- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 9:16 AM