Samuel Pepys was born in London in 1633, the son of a tailor. He was educated at St Paul's School, London, and magdalene College, Cambridge. In 1655 he married, and the following year he entered the household of his cousin Admiral Edward Montagu. In 1660 he begun writing his Diary. With his unquenchable joy in life and his endless curiosity, Pepys gave a vivid first-hand account of the 1660's - the colourful years of the Restoration, the Plague and the Great Fire of London - interwoven with a richly diverting record of his eventful private and domestic life. After just ten years, in May 1669, he closed his Diary, never realizing the historical and literary importance it would attain.

Samuel Pepys's diary was first published in abbreviated form in 1825, over a century after his death in 1703. A succession of new versions brought out in the Victorian era made Pepys one of the best known figures of English history. However, not until the publication of the Latham and Matthews edition was the diary presented in its complete form, with a newly transcribed text and the benefit of a systematic commentary. The text of the Diary is in nine volumes, followed by a Companion and an index. The edition has just become established as the definitive version, hailed by'The Times' as 'one of the glories of contemporary English publishing' and by C.P. Snow as 'a triumph of modern scholarship.'

"A memorial fit for our greatest diarist"
SPECTATOR

The Index to the complete Diary of Samuel Pepys in its most authoritative and acclaimed edition.

This renowned edition of The Diary of Samuel Pepys, edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews, is the first to present a newly transcribed text of the famous Diary and to equip it with a systematic commentary. Published in eleven volumes (nine of the Diary itself, followed by a Companion volume and this Index), it has justly become regarded as the definitive edition.

The Index, compiled by Robert Latham, gives the essential key to the nine volumes of the Diary text, including the introduction and the footnotes. It makes it possible to retrieve a massive variety of information, whether the user wishes to trace successive references to individual people, places and events, or to follow through a general topic, or even to locate specific references and phrases from amongst the wealth of subject matter covered by the Diary.

The entries are made readily accessible by the use of sub-headings, and are also valuably detailed - often reflecting the style of the Diary itself by borrowing from Pepys's own phraseology. As a result the Index becomes more than merely functional, and offers opportunities for much enjoyable exploration.

In many instances references are gathered together under important group headings that can be used to build up a composite picture of different aspects of seventeenth-century England. General topics such as books, dress, food, ships and taverns are afforded detailed entries which include, where necessary, editorial information to identify or elaborate on Pepys's own references.

The Index volume completes the set, and maintains the exemplary standards of this great work of scholarship, which was hailed by The Times as 'one of the glories of contemporary English publishing'.