PEPYS - A Biography by Ollard, Richard

New York 1974, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, US first edition, hard bound in dust jacket, VG-/VG condition, ( dj price clipped and 4 small tape residue marks on covers ), 368 pages, illus, notes, bibliog, glossary, index. Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) has earned a unique place in English history for two lasting ' creations. The first, for which he will always be best remembered and loved, is his Diary. It is perhaps the most faithful and vivid account of a man's daily life ever written. His second achievement was the foundation of the civil administration of the Royal Navy. He saw the Navy's role as one of defense, and converted it from an occasional force gathered for war into a permanent and efficient means of security for Britain. Richard Ollard has drawn together the differing threads running through Pepys's life and has given us a fascinating portrait of this many-sided seventeenth-century man.The times through which Pepys lived were among the most eventful in English history. He was a boy of nine when the Civil War broke out. He went up to Cambridge during the Commonwealth and came back to London to make his way in the world during the last days of Cromwell's rule. The poor and unknown, but hardly untalented, Pepys gravitated toward a- distant relative, Edward Mountagu, soon to become the Earl of Sandwich, a supporter of the future Charles II. With the Restoration, Pepys's patron was rewarded with command of the fleet and Pepys, as his secretary, soon found himself playing a crucial role at the Court and in the Navy. From 1660 to 1669 he meticulously recorded the great events of the day-the Restoration, the Plague, the Fire of London, the naval war with the Dutch-his dealings with courtiers and commoners, his participation in affairs of state (as well as affairs of the heart), and his unending interest in the arts and sciences. Although the death of his wife and his failing eyesight (and perhaps fear of political intrigue) caused him to put aside his Diary in 1669, Pepys continued nearly single-handedly to conduct the business affairs of the Navy until the Glorious Revolution drove him from office in 1689.Pepys epitomizes not only his own brilliant age but offers some larger insights into English character. The sensual man who was fond of pleasures of the flesh was also a Fellow, later a President, of the Royal Society. The man who regularly deceived his wife was a stern moralist and friend of John Evelyn, Isaac Newton, Dryden, and Christopher Wren. The man who missed nothing of the minor pleasures of life, who noticed everything and everybody, who adored the theater and was carried away by music, was a superb administrator and bureaucrat, exact in detail, relentless in efficiency.