A quote from a wonderful review of some Pepys books, at Dublin Review of Books:
Given the extraordinary character of Pepys’s journal it is surprising that it is not more central to English culture and self-understanding. After all, (Leopold) Bloom, once a confirmed outsider, is ever present in contemporary Ireland’s attempts to understand itself. One of Pepys’s nineteenth century admirers, Robert Louis Stevenson, described the diarist as among the greatest men in the annals of mankind, adding: “he has yet placed himself before the public eye with such a fullness and such an intimacy of detail as might be envied by a genius like Montaigne”. Indeed, there is enough material in the diaries to keep the English costume drama sector busy for many years, yet, notwithstanding this and their unique character, they have failed to make a serious impact on the popular mind in England.
Read the whole thing. Here's his entry from Aug 22, 1665, when he hangs out with one of his girlfriends, Mrs. Bagwell (Mr. Bagwell made himself scarce when Pepys stopped by):
Up, and after much pleasant talke and being importuned by my wife and her two mayds, which are both good wenches, for me to buy a necklace of pearle for her, and I promising to give her one of 60l. in two years at furthest, and in less if she pleases me in her painting, I went away and walked to Greenwich, in my way seeing a coffin with a dead body therein, dead of the plague, lying in an open close belonging to Coome farme, which was carried out last night, and the parish have not appointed any body to bury it; but only set a watch there day and night, that nobody should go thither or come thence, which is a most cruel thing: this disease making us more cruel to one another than if we are doggs. So to the King’s House, and there met my Lord Bruncker and Sir J. Minnes, and to our lodgings again that are appointed for us, which do please me better to day than last night, and are set a doing. Thence I to Deptford, where by appointment I find Mr. Andrews come, and to the Globe, where we dined together and did much business as to our Plymouth gentlemen; and after a good dinner and good discourse, he being a very good man, I think verily, we parted and I to the King’s yard, walked up and down, and by and by out at the back gate, and there saw the Bagwell’s wife’s mother and daughter, and went to them, and went in to the daughter’s house with the mother, and ‘faciebam le cose que ego tenebam a mind to con elle’, and drinking and talking, by and by away, and so walked to Redriffe, troubled to go through the little lane, where the plague is, but did and took water and home, where all well; but Mr. Andrews not coming to even accounts, as I expected, with relation to something of my own profit, I was vexed that I could not settle to business, but home to my viall, though in the evening he did come to my satisfaction. So after supper (he being gone first) I to settle my journall and to bed.
