Pepys, Samuel (pēps), 1633–1703, English public official, and celebrated diarist, b. London, grad. Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1653. In 1656 he entered the service of a relative, Sir Edward Montagu (later earl of Sandwich Sandwich, Edward Montagu, 1st earl of
..... Click the link for more information. ), whose secretary he became in 1660. That same year he started as a clerk in the navy office and by 1668 he was an important naval official and owned a considerable estate. In 1672 he was made secretary to the admiralty. He sat in the Parliament of 1679, but he was charged with betraying naval secrets to the French in the same year. He was briefly imprisoned in the Tower but was vindicated and freed in 1680. In 1684 Pepys was reappointed secretary to the admiralty and was made president of the Royal Society Royal Society, oldest scientific organization in Great Britain and one of the oldest in Europe. The Royal Society was first incorporated in 1662 as the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.
..... Click the link for more information. . The accession of William III 3)), William was able to drive the French out of the Netherlands. He made peace with England in 1674 and finally with France in 1678. Thereafter he endeavored to build up a European coalition to prevent further French aggression.
..... Click the link for more information. forced him into retirement, where he wrote his Memoirs … of the Royal Navy (1690).

Pepys left his valuable library, including his diary in cipher, to his nephew John Jackson and in turn to Magdalene College, Cambridge. His diary was discovered there in 1728 and nearly a century later was partially deciphered and first published (1825). An almost full text was edited by H. B. Wheatley (10 vol., 1893–99), but a complete edition did not appear until after World War II. One of the most famous diaries of all time, an intimate record of the daily life and reflections of an ambitious, observing, and lusty young man, it extends from Jan. 1, 1660, to May 31, 1669, when failing eyesight forced him to stop writing. Pepys's diary gives a graphic picture of the social life and conditions of the early Restoration period, including eyewitness accounts of the great plague (1665) and the great fire of London (1666).

Bibliography

See the diary (new ed. by R. Latham and W. Matthews, 10 vol., 1970–83) and the abridgment of the diary (ed. by O. F. Morshead, 1960); Pepys's letters (ed. by H. T. Heath, 1955); biography by C. Tomalin (2002); studies by P. Hunt (1958), C. Emden (1963), O. A. Mendelsohn (1963), M. H. Nicolson (1965), I. E. Taylor (1967), R. Barber (1972).

Pepys, Samuel

Samuel Pepys, oil painting by John Hayls, 1666; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

(credit: Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London)

(born Feb. 23, 1633, London, Eng.—died May 26, 1703, London) English diarist and public official. Born into a humble family, Pepys was appointed about 1659 as a clerk in the office of the Exchequer, where on Jan. 1, 1660, he began the diary for which he is chiefly known. He steadily improved his position, in time becoming secretary of the Admiralty, a member of Parliament, president of the Royal Society, trusted confidant of Charles II and James II, and friend of the great scholars of his age. His diary (published 1825), which he kept through 1669, presents a fascinating picture of the official and upper-class life in Restoration London, with vivid, honest accounts of ordinary as well as great events, including the Plague and the Great Fire of London.

Pepys, Samuel

(1633–1703) English public official; author of diary. [Br. Lit.: NCE, 2103]

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