The Diary of Samuel Pepys is a rare and credible personal accounts documenting the British Restoration period of the monarchy, including the Great Plague, London fire, and a first-hand account of the king's coronation. The Diaries were written in short-hand, and John Smith, who became the Rector of St. Mary the Virgin in Baldock, took three years to transcribe them beginning in 1819, unaware that the key to the Diaries' short-hand was just a few drawers away in Pepys' library. The first published edition was edited by Lord Braybrooke, released in two volumes in 1825. We offer the more complete 1893 edition, edited by Henry B. Wheatley.
Return to the Samuel Pepys library.