Reprint: Pepys into the future

Interesting to note that Samuel Pepys, when he died in 1703, had no idea that he was the great diarist of the English language. In his own time he was known as a superb administrator responsible for major developments in the British Navy. Some consider that his major achievement, and the diaries as mere juvenalia (Pepys was 27 when he started, which is not really juvenile I know).

Well, perhaps he had an inkling, on is death he was found to have left precise instructions as to the handling of the six volumes: their preservation and eventual publication (one published one's own work in those days).

Still, let that be a lesson: you never know how posterity will treat you. He might easily have had a housekeeper like Carlyle's, or an executor like Kafka's.

Yes, I've started reading Claire Tomalin's The Unequalled Self. I won't be reporting back, because that would be presumptuous, given the author and the subject. You either read the book because it is, or you don't ever.

One thing, though. In the blurbs quoted on the inside pages, Philip Henscher of The Observer refers to Pepys as "the most neglected of great English writers". Is he joking? I can think of quite a few more neglected that household-name Pepys. What about Hazlitt, for example?

The Diary, by the way, is available to read in the most enjoyable form imaginable, day by day, here. They have several RSS options.

Samuel Pepys