A New Year

It was on this day in 1660 that Samuel Pepys began keeping a diary (books by this author). Pepys kept his diary for nearly a decade; he wrote about the plague of 1665, the Great Fire of 1666, and the coronation of Charles II. He recorded great scientific discoveries and mundane items as well: his diet, toilet habits, marriage and affairs, and social events that he had been to. He was always very candid about his insecurities and petty jealousies, and he didn't mind sharing a bit of gossip. He left behind a delightfully detailed portrait of Restoration England. He didn't intend to make it public; in fact, he wrote it in shorthand, so that it couldn't be read at a casual glance. He even hid some racy passages in a code made up of a mixture of Italian, Spanish, and French. He kept the diary for nearly 10 years, and finally gave it up when he began to suffer from eye strain. His first entry begins: "Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain but upon taking of cold. I lived in Axe yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three. My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks, gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again."