A story through the diary · His pleasures
Curiosity
Books bound alike, a microscope, a comet, the Royal Society: the reader and collector who wanted to know how things work.
388 days across 10 years, 1660–1669 · 24 steps in its story
Pepys bought books all through the diary: from the shops of Paul's Churchyard, Duck Lane and the Temple, from Kirton and later Martin, and abroad. He had them bound alike, shelved them in his study and, from 1666, in presses, or bookcases, made by the joiner Sympson. He numbered and catalogued them, and resolved to keep no more than the presses would hold.
He was as curious about how things work. He learned arithmetic and taught it to Elizabeth with the globes, bought a microscope and a twelve-foot telescope, and questioned learned men. In February 1665 he was admitted to the Royal Society, which met at Gresham College. He watched its experiments, from the air pump to poisons tried on dogs, though at one meeting he owned he lacked the philosophy to follow them, and heard how one dog's blood had been let into another. In 1684 he became its President.
The lewd French book he read and burned in 1668 is also in the vow tracker, and his 1668 address to the Duke of York is told in Making the Navy work. The eyes that made others read to him, and ended the diary, have their own thread, The failing light. Left to Magdalene College, Cambridge, his books went there with their bookcases in 1724, after his nephew's death.
The story in 24 steps
Step 1 · Tuesday 15 May 1660
Ashore in Holland with the fleet, he is shown the hall where the States General sit, then calls at a bookseller's and buys three books for the love of their binding: the French Psalms in four parts, Bacon's Organon and a rhetoric.
bought for the love of the binding three books
15 May 1660Step 2 · Wednesday 23 January 1661
Over a pot of ale Greatorex tells him he means to try experiments at Tenerife, then goes with him to Gresham College, where Pepys, there for the first time, finds “great company of persons of honour”. At home he reads Osborn's works.
With him to Gresham Colledge (where I never was before)
23 Jan 1661Step 3 · Monday 28 April 1662
Dr Clerke and he begin a “philosophy discourse” that delights him. Clerke offers to bring him into “the college of virtuosoes” (the Royal Society, Wheatley notes), introduce him to Lord Brouncker and show him some anatomy; he means to try when back in London.
He offers to bring me into the college of virtuosoes and my Lord Brouncker’s acquaintance, and to show me some anatomy
28 Apr 1662Step 4 · Friday 27 February 1663
At Surgeons' Hall he hears a lecture on the kidneys and dines among physicians. Afterwards he touches the body of a hanged seaman, and Dr Scarborough shows him the disease of the stone and its cutting, answering every question he can think of.
I did touch the dead body with my bare hand: it felt cold, but methought it was a very unpleasant sight
27 Feb 1663Step 5 · Tuesday 8 September 1663
At Moxon's he buys a pair of globes for £3 10s., chiefly for Elizabeth, at her wish, and admires the two hemispheres Moxon has painted on the window of his dining room.
I buying them principally for my wife, who has a mind to understand them, and I shall take pleasure to teach her
8 Sep 1663Step 6 · Thursday 10 December 1663
With 40s. or £3 gained at the office that day by his stationer's bill to the King, he sits two or three hours at his bookseller's calling for twenty books, torn between plays and serious reading. He takes Fuller's Worthies, the Cabala, Hudibras and more.
do see how my nature would gladly return to laying out money in this trade
10 Dec 1663Step 7 · Saturday 13 August 1664
Reeve brings him a microscope, for which he pays £5 10s., “a great price”, and gives him a scotoscope for looking at objects in a dark room. That night he reads Dr Power's book on the microscope, to learn how to use his glass.
a most curious bauble it is, and he says, as good, nay, the best he knows in England
13 Aug 1664Step 8 · Saturday 24 December 1664
Told at two in the morning that the comet is seen on Tower Hill, he runs there with his boy Tom but sees nothing. That evening he finds it, larger and duller than any other star, and moved to a new place in the heavens.
is gone quite to a new place in the heavens than it was before
24 Dec 1664Step 9 · Saturday 21 January 1665
Home from the office after midnight, he sits up in his chamber till two in the morning reading Hooke's Microscopical Observations, published as Micrographia.
the most ingenious book that ever I read in my life
21 Jan 1665Step 10 · Wednesday 15 February 1665
Proposed by Povy the week before, he is admitted a member of the Royal Society at Gresham College, signing a book and taken by the hand by its President, Brouncker. He watches experiments on how fire goes out where the air is drawn away.
But it is a most acceptable thing to hear their discourse, and see their experiments
15 Feb 1665Step 11 · Wednesday 1 March 1665
At Gresham College Hooke lectures on the comet, arguing that it is very probably the one seen in 1618, and will probably return. Pepys pays his 40s. admission money, but owns that the experiments shown are beyond him.
but I do lacke philosophy enough to understand them, and so cannot remember them
1 Mar 1665Step 12 · Monday 23 July 1666
His books have grown so many that they lie piled on his chairs, and he leaves them unopened rather than move them. With Sympson the joiner he takes great pains contriving presses (bookcases) to hold them.
they now growing numerous, and lying one upon another on my chairs, I lose the use to avoyde the trouble of removing them, when I would open a book
23 Jul 1666Step 13 · Sunday 19 August 1666
Reeve and Spong spend a Sunday with him on optics: rays of light crossing in a smoky dark room, a lantern that throws pictures on a wall, and Jupiter and his satellites through his twelve-foot glass. Reeve makes glasses, he finds, but cannot explain them.
he understanding the acting part, but not one bit the theory, nor can make any body understand it
19 Aug 1666Step 14 · Friday 5 October 1666
After the Fire, Kirton's kinsman, his bookseller, tells him that Kirton is utterly undone, and that above £50,000 of books burned in Paul's Churchyard, St Faith's and the booksellers' warehouses. Latin and foreign books, he says, will be scarce.
all the great booksellers almost undone
5 Oct 1666Step 15 · Wednesday 14 November 1666
At supper with the Houblons, Dr Croone tells him of a trial at Gresham College: one dog bled to death into another, which lived. It prompts jokes, a Quaker's blood for an Archbishop, but Croone thinks it may mend men's bad blood.
may, if it takes, be of mighty use to man’s health, for the amending of bad blood by borrowing from a better body
14 Nov 1666Step 16 · Monday 4 February 1667
Home from the play, he goes to his chamber and finishes the catalogue of his books, written out in his own hand.
there finished my Catalogue of my books with my own hand
4 Feb 1667Step 17 · Monday 10 June 1667
With the Dutch come up to the Nore, he spends the day choosing fireships at Deptford, then goes down the river to Gravesend. On the way home he reads Boyle's Hydrostatics until it is too dark, and means to take pains to understand it.
which is a most excellent book as ever I read, and I will take much pains to understand him through if I can
10 Jun 1667Step 18 · Saturday 30 November 1667
Nearly chosen for the Society's Council, he hears the first sound man in England to undergo the blood experiment, paid 20s., report in Latin he feels “as a new man”. Pepys thinks him “cracked a little in his head”, though he “speaks very reasonably”.
I was near being chosen of the Council, but am glad I was not, for I could not have attended, though, above all things, I could wish it
30 Nov 1667Step 19 · Friday 10 January 1668
At Martin's, his new bookseller, he buys Fournier on the sea and bespeaks a book of China. His two presses will now be so full that he must give books away: his design is to keep no more than the presses hold.
it being my design to have no more at any time for my proper library than to fill them
10 Jan 1668Step 20 · Sunday 9 February 1668
He reads L'escholle des filles, “a mighty lewd book”, though one, he writes, a sober man may read once for information. That night he reads it through; Wheatley's cut falls here. Then he burns it, lest it stand among his books to his shame.
but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over to inform himself in the villainy of the world
9 Feb 1668Wheatley cut part of this entry.
Step 21 · Thursday 2 April 1668
At the Royal Society he is “forced to subscribe” £40 towards a college, and fears it will spoil the Society with faction. Through the otacousticon, a broken glass bottle at his ear, he hears oars on the Thames from the Arundel gallery window.
I did plainly hear the dashing of the oares of the boats in the Thames to Arundell gallery window
2 Apr 1668Step 22 · Friday 3 July 1668
At an alehouse in the Strand he watches Dr Lower dissect the eyes of sheep and oxen, with Turberville, his eye physician, and others. He finds it strange that so great a man as Turberville had seen eyes dissected but once, if ever.
to dissect several eyes of sheep and oxen, with great pleasure, and to my great information
3 Jul 1668Step 23 · Friday 12 March 1669
Taken to Nott, the famous bookbinder who bound for the Lord Chancellor's library, he bespeaks a book to be bound purely to own one of his bindings. Later Howe reads him a chapter of Coke on perjury.
I did take occasion for curiosity to bespeak a book to be bound, only that I might have one of his binding
12 Mar 1669Step 24 · Saturday 8 May 1669
His papers on his August address to the Duke of York return bound: he thinks they shall do him more right many years hence than perhaps all he did. Browne's perspective instrument pleases him, but he fears the pleasure of his eyes is almost lost.
but have I fear all the content that must be received by my eyes is almost lost
8 May 1669
See all 388 days on the mood grid
Related stories
- The failing light From tired eyes by candlelight to the fear of blindness that ended the diary.
- The family A tailor's family, an uncle's estate at Brampton, and the eldest son who ran them both.
- Music Singing in parts, the viol and the flageolet, songs of his own: from the diary's first month to its last week.
- Making the Navy work How a clerk new to the Navy learned its business, and then had to defend it.
Sources: The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Introduction (opens in a new tab) · The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Henry B. Wheatley: editor's note on 2 January 1665 (Micrographia) (opens in a new tab) · The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Henry B. Wheatley: editor's note on 28 April 1662 (the college of virtuosoes, the Royal Society) (opens in a new tab)