Non-fiction about Pepys' time

17 Annotations

First Reading

Sjoerd  •  Link

I just finished

"Batavia's Graveyard" by Mike Dash

(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos… )

It describes the shipwreck of the VOC ship "Batavia" in 1628 and the ordeal of its crew and passengers that follows.

I was put off a bit at first by the sensational blurbs , but reading it you get convinced that most of the terrible adventures WERE real and that a lot of it is very well researched.

That is why I recommend it to Pepys Diary fans: the several researchers have really "dug in". It is history down to the last square millimetre, as it were.

Jeannine  •  Link

Antonia Fraser's "The Weaker Vessel" explores the varying roles of women in the 17th century from the period of Queen Elizabeth through Queen Anne. The Comwell-Charles II time offers interesting insights as the roles of women tended to change with the Restoration. Fraser covers the spectrum of roles --heiress, dairymaid, holy women, prostitutes, midwives, criminals, educators, mothers, heroines, courtesans, businesswomen, ladies of the court and the actress. Elizabeth Pepys gets a few highlights and Sam's Diary plays into quite a few of the quotes, etc. The span of emotions covers such topics as the heartbreaking perils of childbirth and the far too many associated deaths, to the "bartering" of ones daughters for better social status right up to the rare loving wives and happy unions. Fraser explores where women were seen as the "Weaker Vessel" mostly in areas where they were denied "access to entrance", like education, etc. but horribly placed in terms of protection under law. The one thing that is clear is that the best status a women could hope for was that of a wealthy widow-- the only place with the "loophole" where she was not "owned" by either her father or her husband and was given the protection of law, the ability to make decisions for herself and the respect of society.

Australian Susan  •  Link

The Command of the Ocean: a Naval history of Britain 1649-1815 by N.A.M. Rodger, Allen Lane, 2004, ISBN 0713994118
The author is an ex-Admiral and has written other books about the Royal navy, so he has all the personal experience to make this an excellent read. I have not yet read it, but it is now on my to-be-read list. Large section on Pepys and the Navy, also Penn and Batten and much else to interest us.
Amazon link http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos…
Amazon.co.uk link
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obid…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Peter Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and Family Life in London 1660-1730. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId…

An ebook available to public (internet) reading with 100 mentions of Pepys (quotations or references to Pepys Diary), most in Chapter THREE

Terry Foreman  •  Link

To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World by Arthur Herman (HarperCollins, Oct. 2004), available for searching online as a Google Print book, in a series of lively incidents traces the story in 21 chapters from the 16c competition with Spain over transatlantic slavery to the 20c "Long Journey Home."

But the navy becomes itself in Chap. Nine, as "Mr. Pepys' Navy."

http://print.google.com/print?id=…

Hardcover http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos…

Hardcover and paperback (Perennial, Nov. 1, 2005)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obid…


Terry Foreman  •  Link

Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England by David Cressy (Oxford, 1999)

In Chapters on Birth (4), Baptism (4), Churchings (1), Courtship (2), Marriage (5) and Death (4), 44 pages draw on evidence from the Pepys Diary.

Amazon.co.uk - Hardcover and paperback
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obid…

Amazon.com - hardcover
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos…

Amazon.com - paperback
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos…

Jeannine  •  Link

The History of the Revolutions of Portugal, From the Foundation of that Kingdom to the Year MDCLXVII. With Letters of Sir Robert Southwell, During his Embassy there, To the Duke of Ormond; Giving a particular Account of the of the deposing Alfonso.
Thomas Carte

Robert Southwell was the English Ambassador to Portugal under Charles II. Carte has recorded his letters as Southwell details the history of Portugal and the account of the overthrow of Alfonso (Catherine of Braganza

Terry F,  •  Link

"Telling Time: Clocks, Diaries, and English Diurnal Form, 1660-1785," by Stuart Sherman (University of Chicago Press, 1997)

A striking exploration of the transition to modernity. Pepys's diary is the key text: Ch. 2: "'In The Fullness of Time': Pepys and His Prececessors" shows how Pepys expresses the new sense of the day, organized by each hour and minute, -- before he acquired a watch -- rather than a sprawling undated narrative such as the one we find in Cervantes in 1605: e.g. "One morning," etc.

Synopsis

"A revolution in clock technology in England during the 1600s allowed people to measure time more accurately, attend to it more minutely, and possess it more privately than previously imaginable. In "Telling Time," Stuart Sherman argues that innovations in prose emerged simultaneously with this technological breakthrough, enabling authors to recount the new kind of time by which England was learning to live and work.

"Through...readings of Samuel Pepys's diary, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's daily "Spectator," the travel writings of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, and the novels of Daniel Defoe and Frances Burney, Sherman traces the development of a new way of counting time in prose--the diurnal structure of consecutively dated installments--within the cultural context of the daily institutions which gave it form and motion."

Paperback:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos…

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obid…

Australian Susan  •  Link

Excellent book about the emerging civil service in this time (Sam of course is mentioned a lot). Written by one of my tutors at University, alas, now dead, Prof. Aylmer.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos…
The Crown's Servants: Government and Civil Service Under Charles Ii, 1660-1685

Australian Susan  •  Link

Scurvy by R. Bown
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos…
Although the "cure" for scurvy was not found until the late 18th century, there is much in this book which pertains to conditions of the Navy in the 17th century.

Terry F  •  Link

Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration : Literature, Drama, History (Paperback) by Gerald MacLean (Editor)

Includes chapters by John Patrick Montaño, “The Quest for Consensus: The Lord Mayor’s Shows in the 1670s,” and James Grantham Turner, "Pepys and the private parts of monarchy," and 11 others.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/…

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obid…

dirk  •  Link

"The Wits and Beaux of Society" - Volume 1, by Grace and Philip Wharton, New York, first ed. 1860, this edition, 1890

"Their first book had been all about women; the second book should be all about men. Accordingly they set to work selecting certain types that pleased them; they wrote a fresh collection of pleasant essays and presented the reading public with "Wits and Beaux of Society". [...] They do not profess to have anything to do with the graver processes of history—these entertaining volumes; they seek rather to amuse than to instruct, and they fulfil their purpose excellently. There is instruction in them, but it comes in by the way; one is conscious of being entertained, and it is only after the entertainment is over that one finds that a fair amount of information has been thrown in to boot. The Whartons have but old tales to tell, but they tell them very well, and that is the first part of their business."

Already in the first sentence of the first chapter "Samuel Pepys in his Glory" is nicknamed "the weather-glass of his time". He is referred to many times, from page 1 up to page 88.

Many other characters from the Pepys Diary also make their appearance..

Can be read online at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18…
or downloaded at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18…

dirk  •  Link

The Carte papers...

...in the Bodleian Library comprise vast collections of original papers from various sources which Thomas Carte amassed in preparation for the publication of his biography of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, in 1735-6. There are 276 large volumes, comprising Ormond, Fitzwilliam, Chichester, Sandwich, Wharton, Huntingdon and Nairn papers largely relating to the history of Britain and Ireland in the period 1560-1715.

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

dirk  •  Link

Seebald's travels

This book is only available in Dutch or German. However, for those who are able to read one of these languages it's an excellent description of a sailor's life in the 17th century. It's not a novel, but all the (historically accurate) facts and quotes are presented as parts of the personal story of an imaginary sailor (Seebald), to create a coherent frame of reference. Many things will sound familiar to some of the regular annotators to this site -- like the casual reference to the "Seaman's Grammar" for instance. A very useful book!

DUTCH:
"Seebalds reizen - Het verlangen van de zeeman in de zeventiende eeuw"
http://www.boonmaritiem.nl/waters…

GERMAN TRANSLATION:
"Seebalds Reisen - Die ferne Welt der Seefahrer"
http://www.amazon.de/o/ASIN/38967…
http://www.primusverlag.de/detail…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

*The age of faction: court politics, 1660-1702*
By Alan Marshall
http://short.to/17423

Marshall covers the emergence of political parties and interest groups from the Restoration to the end of William III of Orange and England.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

THE S E A M A N S Grammar and Dictionary, Explaining all the difficult T E R M S in N A V I G A T I O N:
A N D T H E P R A C T I C A L Navigator and Gunner: In Two Parts
By Captain J O H N S M I T H, Sometimes Governour of Virginia, and Admiral of New England:
http://www.shipbrook.net/jeff/sea…

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