Samuel Pepys, painted by John Hayls in 1666 (National Portrait Gallery, London). Pepys is holding a piece of music that he had composed.
library that Pepys gave to Magdalene College, Cambridge, his alma mater. There it stayed on the shelf for generations, until early in the nineteenth century, a curious (or bored) student pulled it off the shelf and realized that there was something amazing there. The diary was translated in the nineteenth century, but editors expurgated the sexually explicit parts. (Most of the editions you can find on the web are from these expurgated texts.) It was translated and transcribed in full in the 1970s and 80s, and that edition, The Diaries of Samuel Pepys, is an amazing, enormous resource. A fun way to read Pepys today is go to Pepys’ Diary online: http://www.pepysdiary.com, which allows you to follow the Diary day by bay.
Sample entries:
The Opening of the Diary and 1 January 1660
The Great Fire