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The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Volume III: 1667-1669
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh, David Timson
- Length: 36 hrs and 3 mins
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Publisher's summary
The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the Navy Office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century England, covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, and wine and his peccadilloes.
This Naxos AudioBooks production is the world-premiere recording of the diary in its entirety. It has been divided into three volumes. Volume III presents the last three years of Pepys' diary. By then he was in his mid-30s and confident in his ability to deal with differing political factions within the Navy Office; his affection for his wife, Elizabeth, grew ever stronger despite wandering eyes, and he found he was worth £6,000 and more - a considerable sum for the son of a tailor, who started with nothing. His concerns with his eyes grew, and it was with some regret that he stopped writing his diary at the end of May 1669.
Leighton Push reads from the Robert Latham and William Matthews' text; prefaces are written and read by David Timson.
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Master Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and writer Benvenuto Cellini is best remembered for his magnificent autobiography. In this work, which was actually begun in 1558 but not published until 1730, Cellini beautifully chronicles his flamboyant times. He tells of his adventures in Italy and France, and his relations with popes, kings, and fellow artists.
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The problem is with Cellini himself.
- By Leslie Ross on 06-07-10
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Cranford
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Prunella Scales
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A vivid and affectionate portrait of the residents of an English country town in the mid-19th century, Cranford describes a community dominated by its independent and refined women, relating the adventures of Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two middle-aged spinster sisters striving to live with dignity in reduced circumstances. Through a series of satirical vignettes, Gaskell sympathetically portrays changing small town customs and values in mid-Victorian England....
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Quietly, subtly sweet and heartwarming
- By T. on 03-26-12
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The Warden
- By: Anthony Trollope
- Narrated by: Nigel Hawthorne
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the world of the Victorian professional and landed classes, the story centres on Mr Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity who is nevertheless in possession of an income from a charity far in excess of the sum devoted to it.
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a delight
- By Janet on 12-22-08
By: Anthony Trollope
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Castles, Customs, and Kings
- True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors
- By: Debra Brown, M.M. Bennetts
- Narrated by: Ruth Golding
- Length: 25 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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A compilation of essays from the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, this book provides a wealth of historical information from Roman Britain to early 20th-century England. Over 50 different authors share hundreds of real life stories and tantalizing tidbits discovered while doing research for their own historical novels.
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Historical Tidbits
- By Troy on 08-03-15
By: Debra Brown, and others
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Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions?
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JOHNATHAN SWIFT AND POWER OF THE PEN
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 09-30-14
By: Leo Damrosch
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Tristram Shandy
- By: Laurence Sterne
- Narrated by: Anton Lesser
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Laurence Sterne’s most famous novel is a biting satire of literary conventions and contemporary 18th-century values. Renowned for its parody of established narrative techniques, Tristram Shandyis commonly regarded as the forerunner of avant-garde fiction. Tristram’s characteristic digressions on a whole range of unlikely subjects (including battle strategy and noses!) are endlessly surprising and make this one of Britain’s greatest comic achievements.
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Like discovering Frank Zappa in 250 years
- By Darwin8u on 01-02-14
By: Laurence Sterne
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My Lady Ludlow
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Susannah York
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Lady Ludlow's appalling snobbery, prejudice and bred-in-the-bone conviction as to the superiority of the English aristocracy and their feudal way of life are deliciously tested, and found wanting, in this gently radical tale of the collapse of a social system. Elizabeth Gaskell's My Lady Ludlow is a brilliant picture of the shift in power in a rural northern village, from the velvety feudal Ludlows to the glitter of the new money rattling through the system courtesy of the brazen baker from Birmingham.
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A treat
- By Tad Davis on 03-04-20
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Plain Tales from the Hills
- By: Rudyard Kipling
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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An intimate, evocative, often funny, and always vital portrait of India at the peak of the British Raj. Written at the age of 22, they immediately show Kipling's natural and prodigious talent. Timeless, they can be listened to forever.
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Gentle irony
- By Simon Bowler on 01-25-06
By: Rudyard Kipling
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Black Mischief
- By: Evelyn Waugh
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Black Mischief, Waugh's third novel, helped to establish his reputation as a master satirist. Set on the fictional African island of Azania, the novel chronicles the efforts of Emperor Seth, assisted by the Englishman Basil Seal, to modernize his kingdom. Profound hilarity ensues from the issuance of homemade currency, the staging of a "Birth Control Gala", the rightful ruler's demise at his own rather long and tiring coronation ceremonies, and a good deal more mischief.
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Raucous, Not Racist
- By John on 10-01-16
By: Evelyn Waugh
What listeners say about The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Volume III: 1667-1669
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- NbptMax
- 11-29-22
Grateful for the work
There was no way I would’ve ever had the patience to read through all three volumes of the diary, and I’m thankful that it was set to audio. Well rendered and engaging - an insight into 17th century England.
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- Darwin8u
- 12-25-15
There is nothing like silence - C'est Fini!
"There is nothing like silence -- it being seldom any wrong to a man to say nothing, but for the most part it is to say anything."
-- Samuel Pepys, 6 December, 1667
1667:
The eighth (1667, with 201,000 words) and longest volume, of Samuel Pepy's famous diary. I can't believe I only have one volume left. I think the length of this volume/year has a lot to do with the unique circumstances England finds itself in. The war with the Dutch finally ends, but hasn't solved the inadequacies of money and governance in England. Charles II and his corrupt court has made it difficult to even keep a navy. Bills are piling up and debt has grown, and one of the more rational actors (The Lord Chancellor, 1st Earl of Clarendon) was undone by those in the Court that thought he had too much power with the King. He was impeached and banished with few taking his side (except his son-in-law Duke of York, and Henry Coventry*). Anyway, all of this trouble reduces Pepy's activity somewhat, so it appears he has more time to write in his diary, go to plays, prepare for his defense in from to fate House of Commons (Pepys was well respected for his competency and honest among the House of Commons, the nobility and the King), grope women, sleep with women, count his money, and even ejaculate in the Queen's chapel during High Mass on Christmas Eve ("But here I did make myself do la costa be mere imagination, marinade a jolie most and with my eyes open, which I never did before -- and God forgive me for it, it being in the chapel.).
I think one of the reasons I ADORE this diary is the honesty, the hilarity, the boldness of Pepys. It is strange. I've read now over 1 million of the most private thoughts a man can have about life, love, money, politics, ambition, marriage, duplicity, religion, science, etc., and I'm pretty sure I know Pepys better than I have known anyone except my wife and perhaps my children. He has inspired me to keep my own diary and to be as open as I can in it, but even I could never hope to rise to the level of transparency of Pepys who can riff on farts, fucks, and frigates like no man I've ever met or had the pleasure to read.
* His brother William Coventry, however, was one of those largely responsible for his fall.
1668-1669:
The last volume (1668, with 128,000 words; 1669, with 52,500 words) and last years of Samuel Pepy's famous diary.
"And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and, therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear: and, therefore, resolve, from this time forward, to have it kept by my people in long-hand, and must therefore be contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or, if there be any thing, which cannot be much, now my amours to Deb. are past, and my eyes hindering me in almost all other pleasures, I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add, here and there, a note in short-hand with my own hand.
And so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to see myself go into my grave: for which, and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me!"
In 1668 Pepys finds his eyes are getting daily worse. Which, for a man like Pepys who draws so much satisfaction from reading and writing is a real burden. He starts trying different things (having servants and family read to him, limit his reading, limit his writing, using paper Tubes, eye drops, limiting drink, etc) to satisfy his eyes.
The Parliament has been investigating the Navy office and he has to respond to the Committee of Accounts (concerning Prizes) and the Committee for Miscarriages to the Parliament (concerning tickets). His speech before Parliament was so well taken that several people report to Pepys that his speech was "best thing they ever heard" and that he "got the most honor that any could have had opportunity of getting", even that Pepys was "another Cicero."
It might be vanity, but I loved seeing him buying Montaigne's essays in March and Hobb's Leviathan in September.
Things also shift for Pepys late in October of 1668 when Pepys' wife walks in while he is "embracing the girl [Deb Willet, the maid to Mrs Pepys] con my hand sub su coats; and ended, I was with my main in her cunny." Pepys is sorry, indeed, but not repentant. He likes Deb, likes his freedom, likes the strange, but now that he has been caught with his hand, literally, in the maid, his wife requires him to only go out with his servant or her. So his ability to travel alone and grope has severely been limited. Vexing.
While Pepys' position and reputation with the King and in the Navy continues to increase, the deterioration of his eyesight and health requires him to take a vacation and stop writing in his diary. His diary ends in May of 1669.
Epilogue:
Afterwards, to give his eyes a rest he travels to France with his wife. She, unfortunately, ends up getting sick in France and dies of a fever shortly after they get back in late 1669. Pepys lives a good and comfortable life both with work and retirement (member of Parliament, Master of Trinity House, President of the Royal Society). Pepys dies almost 34 years after his diary ends in May of 1703.
A good tribute to Pepys is found in an entry by Pepys' contemporary and fellow diarist John Evelyn who writes in his diary about Pepys's death:
"1703, May 26th.
This day died Mr. Sam Pepys, a very worthy, industrious, and curious person, none in England exceeding him in knowledge of the navy, in which he had passed thro' all the most considerable offices, Clerk of the Acts and Secretary of the Admiralty, all which he performed with great integrity. When K. James II. went out of England, he laid down his office, and would serve no more, but withdrawing himselfe from all public affaires, he liv'd at Clapham with his partner Mr. Hewer, formerly his clerk, in a very noble and sweete place, where he enjoy'd the fruits of his labours in greate prosperity.
He was universally belov'd, hospitable, generous, learned in many things, skilfd in music, a very greate cherisher of learned men of whom he had the conversation . . . .
Mr. Pepys had been for neere 40 yeeres so much my particular friend that Mr. Jackson sent me compleat mourning, desiring me to be one to hold up the pall at his magnificent obsequies, but my indisposition hinder'd me from doing him this last office."
So, after 9 volumes, 3,100 pages and 1,250,000 words covering 10 years (1660-1669, I am done. And so too, finally too, is Pepys.
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