BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

Samuel Pepys - After the Fire

A further BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of the famous diarist's writings, starring Kris Marshall and Katherine Jakeways.

"...balancing domesticity, business and history so vividly and unexpectedly it sounds as if 1660 were the day before yesterday."

Daily Telegraph (review of the first series)

Samuel Pepys was born on 23 February 1633, the son of a London tailor. He graduated from Cambridge in 1654, and in 1655 he married Elizabeth St Michel. He started work for Sir Edward Montague, a relation who later became the 1st Earl of Sandwich, and through him first went to sea. Pepys later found work with the Navy Office, eventually rising to become Secretary of the Admiralty. He also became a JP, an MP and a Fellow of the Royal Society. In later life he was accused of being part of the anti-monarchist ‘Popish Plot’, and was twice imprisoned for it. Upon his second release he retired to Clapham, then considered to be ‘in the country’. Samuel Pepys died on 26 May 1703. His diaries, which had been written in code, were bequeathed to Magdalen College, Cambridge, where they can still be viewed.

Kris Marshall (My Family) stars in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of the famous diarist's account of the aftermath of the Great Fire of London. 
 
Following on from the acclaimed radio dramatisation of Pepys' complete diaries, this further instalment of his chronicles focuses on events following the cataclysmic inferno that destroyed much of the capital four hundred years ago. 
 
When the Great Fire of 1666 was finally extinguished, little remained of London but smouldering rubble. Samuel Pepys witnessed firsthand the impact it had on the city and its people, and would be haunted by what he had seen for the rest of his life. Thousands of homes and many key buildings had been destroyed or damaged, including St Paul's Cathedral. 
 
Now aged 70, in poor health, and living with his servant Will in Clapham, Pepys remembers the devastation. He recalls burying his prize Parmesan to keep it safe, standing in Moorfield among the homeless as London burned, going out in his carriage to look at the ruins, and viewing the plans for the new city that would rise from the ashes – its centrepiece a magnificent cathedral that would be hailed as a masterpiece. 
 
Starring Kris Marshall as Samuel Pepys, this entertaining and enlightening adaptation by Hattie Naylor vividly conjures up the sights and sounds of Pepys' world. Duration: 1 hour 15 mins approx.

The Great Fire of London

'With one's face in the wind you were almost burned with a shower of Firedrops' 
 
A selection from Pepys' startlingly vivid and candid diary, including his famous account of the Great Fire 
 
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. 
 
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703). The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A Selection is available in Penguin Classics

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was a naval administrator, Member of Parliament and best remembered as a diarist. Kept between 1660-1669 and written in Shelton's shorthand, Pepys' diary recorded major historical events, like the Plague and the Great Fire of London alongside his more personal concerns and activities, including politics, his work in public life and rows with his wife, Elizabeth

The BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Kris Marshall and Katherine Jakeways star as Mr &amp; Mrs Pepys in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of the world famous diaries.

...balancing domesticity, business and history so vividly and unexpectedly it sounds as if 1660 were the day before yesterday.

Kris Marshall and Katherine Jakeways star as Mr &amp; Mrs Pepys in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of the world famous diaries. 
 
Samuel Pepys was 26 when he decided to start keeping a diary, in January 1660. For the next ten years he faithfully recorded the day's events and confessed his innermost thoughts. That diary has since become one of our most important, and fascinating, historical documents. 
 
Pepys gave us eyewitness accounts of some of the great events of the 17th century, including the Great Fire of London and the Second Dutch War. He also told us what people ate and wore, what they did for fun, the tricks they played on each other, what they expected of marriage, and even how they conducted love affairs. He described London - the frozen river Thames, the rising crime rate and the poverty - and recorded the details of his own life: his wife, rivals, lovers and friends, his work for the Navy, his drinking and social life. 
 
Over 350 years may have passed since Pepys first put pen to paper, but the man and his preoccupations feel surprisingly familiar. In this major BBC Radio dramatisation of the journals, the sights and sounds of his world are vividly conjured. This collection comprises all ten radio series plus a special Saturday Drama centring on the Great Fire of London. 
 
 
Featuring Kris Marshall and Katherine Jakeways, as well as; ewan Baily, Rebecca Newman, Matthew Gravelle, Manon Edwards, Blake Ritson, Dick Bradnam, Lee Mingo, Andrew Wincott, John Biddle, Stephen Marzella and Bendan Charleson.

The Joys of Excess

Vigorous, precise, enchanting ... the most ordinary and the most extraordinary writer you will ever meet

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was a naval administrator, Member of Parliament and best remembered as a diarist. Kept between 1660-1669 and written in Shelton's shorthand, Pepys' diary recorded major historical events, like The Plague and The Great Fire of London alongside his more personal concerns and activities, including politics, his work in public life and rows with his wife, Elizabeth. Throughout are his fulsome thoughts on food, including his first encounters with drinking chocolate.

As well as being the most celebrated diarist of all time, Samuel Pepys was also a hearty drinker, eater and connoisseur of epicurean delights, who indulged in every pleasure seventeenth-century London had to offer. 
 
Whether he is feasting on barrels of oysters, braces of carps, larks' tongues and copious amounts of wine, merrymaking in taverns until the early hours, attending formal dinners with lords and ladies or entertaining guests at home with his young wife, these irresistible selections from Pepys's diaries provide a frank, high-spirited and vivid picture of the joys of over-indulgence - and the side-effects afterwards.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A Selection

Published to co-incide with the pbk of Claire Tomalin's Whitbread Prize-winning biography

Previously published as The Shorter Pepys, Samuel Pepys' The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A Selection is a collection of scintillating first-hand accounts of Restoration England, from the most tumultuous events to the simplest domestic pleasures, selected and edited by Robert Latham. 
 
The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events - the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Great Plague, the Fire of London - Pepys provides a definitive eyewitness account. As well as recording public and historical events, Pepys paints a vivid picture of his personal life, from his socializing and amorous entanglements, to his theatre-going and his work at the Navy Board. Unequalled for its frankness, high spirits and sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece and a marvellous portrait of seventeenth-century life. 
 
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) achieved fame as a naval administrator and a friend and colleague of the powerful and learned. For nearly ten years he kept a private diary in which he recorded life in Restoration London, commenting on politics, public events, and private matters. 
 
If you enjoyed The Diary of Samuel Pepys, you might like Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings, also available in Penguin Classics. 
 
''For anyone who wants to get to grips with Pepys but quails at more than a million words, here is the solution: Robert Latham's beautifully judged abridgment of the Diary. Pure pleasure' 
Clare Tomalin, author of Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self 
 
'This prince of Diarists, this most amiable and admirable of men, has at last been worthily served' 
Paul Johnson, Spectator

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) achieved fame as a naval administrator &amp; a friend &amp; colleague of the powerful &amp; learned. For nearly 10 years he kept a private diary in which he recorded life in Restoration London.  Robert Latham edited the 11 volume edition of Pepys diary

Samuel Pepys

Kate Loveman

When Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) began writing in 1660 he was a young clerk living in London, struggling to pay his rent. Over the next nine years as he kept his journal, he rose to be a powerful naval administrator. He became eyewitness to some of the most significant events in seventeenth-century English history, among them, the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 (he was in the ship that brought back Charles II from exile), the plague that ravaged the capital in 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666, described with poetry and horror. 
 Pepys's diary gives vivid descriptions of spectacular events, but much of the richness of the diary lies in the details it provides about the minor dramas of daily life. While Pepys was keen to hear the King's views, he was also ready to talk with a soldier, a housekeeper, or a child rag-picker. He records with searing frankness his tumultuous personal and professional life: the pleasures and frustrations of his marriage, together with his infidelities, his ambitions, and his power schemes. All of this was set down in shorthand, to protect it from prying eyes. The result is a lively, often astonishing, diary and an unrivalled account of life in seventeenth-century London.

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