claire tomalin samuel pepys the unequalled self

Her research has been not just scrupulously thorough but dazzlingly imaginative. Claire Tomalin s life is a magnificent triumph. It takes an exceptional biographer to go so confidently beyond the apparent totality of daily experience presented in Pepys s 'Diary.

Charles McGrath, 'New York Times Book Review,' front cover Brilliantly believable. Thomas Mallon, 'The New Yorker ' Tomalin not only brings him back to vibrant life, but makes a powerful case that he s more central, more relevant than we ever imagined. Tomalin gives us the rest of the man, and also a startling new way to read him. We will meet on Thursday 27th August.The Pepys we know lived for only nine years and five months.

The book for next month is The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. Much of the discussion was about whether we liked Pepys, the man, or not – a credit to Tomalin’s telling that we all felt we knew him well enough to do this! Several members are keen to read more by the same author, and more about this period of history. Most members of the group enjoyed the book, finding it informative and interesting, although it cannot be described as ‘gripping’. It is, though, the diary years which really come alive and give you a sense both of the man himself but also the period in which he lived. What we know of the man beyond the diary is actually quite limited, and Tomalin has done a wonderful job of trying to pull together the smattering of sources that describe his life before and after the decade covered by his diaries. And so we see events like the Fire of London and the plague through the eyes of someone who lived it. We are lucky that while he was keeping his diary, some major events took place. He did spend time in the Tower but fared better than many of his contemporaries.

The combination of brains and social adroitness meant that he managed to manoeuvre his way through the Cromwell years, and navigate his way safely through the accession to the throne of King Charles II. He was clearly a very clever man, who was also adept at making his way through the political and social chaos of the time. Having said that, to say he was ordinary is perhaps to do him a disservice. But the fascination is not so much that he was an extraordinary man, but that he was an ordinary man, living through a turbulent period of history, who just happened to keep a diary. The son of a tailor, he rose to become Chief Secretary of the Admiralty. This biography by Claire Tomalin went a long way towards putting this right. But what else? He is one of those people from history I knew of but knew next to nothing about.

Claire tomalin samuel pepys the unequalled self