Claire Tomalin’s Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self is BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week from Monday 6th January and you can listen to it online here.



4 Comments

First Reading

Leonard Dribinsky  •  Link

BBC Radio 4 has moved on to a new book. Is there some way to go to an archive and listen to Clair Tomalin?

Phil  •  Link

It doesn't appear Radio 4 archive Book of the Week, so it doesn't look like you can hear it now.

N Keeling  •  Link

I am trying to find a copy of Shelton's Code as used by Samuel Pepys for a lesson I want to deliver for an interview can you help
PS useful website thanks

Phil Gyford  •  Link

You might find this useful: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/famo…

Here's the first activity sheet it mentions: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/famo…

That sheet suggests the shorthand is as simple as a symbol for each letter, but it was more complicated than that. There were two books of the period by Thomas Shelton called 'A Tutor to Tachygraphy, or, Short-Writing' (1642) and 'Tachygraphy' (1647) which were re-printed in one volume in 1970 by The Augustan Reprint Society. It's now out of print but you might be able to track one down somewhere.

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