THE CONFESSIONS OF SAMUEL PEPYS

The famous diary, with all the nasty bits in plain English.

As de la Bédoyère notes in his introduction, the 1660-69 diary was written in shorthand, and the portions describing Pepys’ active, adulterous sex life were routinely omitted until a complete transcription was published beginning in the 1970s. Even then, the most graphic portions were not translated from the polyglot phrase, in a mixture of French and Spanish Pepys devised to further mask his transgressions. These passages are rendered in English in this peculiar text, which narrates Pepys’ life and illustrates it with substantial excerpts from the diaries. However, de la Bédoyère’s narration often merely summarizes what readers can see for themselves in the excerpts. Those amply make the point that Pepys was a lousy husband, abusive employer, and shameless exploiter of his position as Clerk of the Acts on Britain’s Navy Board. Diary entries show him criticizing his wife, Elisabeth, for everything from wearing a dress he deemed “silly” to leaving some belongings in a coach, “though I confess, she did give them to me to look after.” He treated his female household servants like playthings to be fondled and happily took sexual advantage of women seeking promotions or favors for their husbands, often, the author notes, with the collusion of their husbands. But the explicit sex scenes in English that are the big selling point quickly become tedious, and although de la Bédoyère mentions it only in his footnotes, The Dark Side of Samuel Pepys by Geoffrey Pimm covered the same ground in 2017. Within the context of the entire diary, famed for its vivid evocation of Restoration England, these passages would be a sobering reminder of women’s subordinate status in that era and the willingness of a man in power to profit from it. As the sole topic, it would be better served by a short article.

More than you want to know.