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Article: A new life of Samuel Pepys. (Reviews).(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- April 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self Claire Tomalin. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. 499 pages. ISBN 0-670-88568-1.
In this splendid biography of the great seventeenth-century diarist the author has chosen a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson's comments on Pepys as her subtitle: Stevenson was writing about Pepys' sincerity which made his diary 'a miracle among books'. Whether Pepys 'did ill or well, he was still his own unequalled self; still that entrancing ego of whom alone he cared to write'. Pepys' 'ego' led him to write his diary and his fame rests on what he wrote.
Samuel Pepys was born the son of a tailor and educated as a scholarship boy at St ...