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PEPYS IN THE HISTORY OF READING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2007

ELSPETH JAJDELSKA
ELSPETH JAJDELSKA*
Affiliation:
University of Strathclyde
*
Department of English Studies, University of Strathclyde, Livingstone Tower, 26 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1XQ[email protected]
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Abstract

The history of reading is a comparatively recent field. Work to date has been diverse both in period and methodology, ranging from case studies of individuals to statistical analyses of populations. This diversity means that it can be hard to discern either a broadly agreed narrative of reading practices or a clear set of debates. However, a range of scholars have emphasized contrasts between intensive and extensive reading, oral and silent reading, utilitarian and recreational reading, and public and private reading. These contrasts have been aligned with historical periods, with oral reading, for example, being associated with early modern reading in contrast to later periods. This article analyses the reading practices of Samuel Pepys and concludes that his example supports a contrast between a more intensive, oral, utilitarian, and public reading in the seventeenth century and that of later periods. Pepys's reading practices are also shown to have profound effects on his interpretation of texts. He sees texts of all genres as scripts to be performed by particular individuals, and judges them according to their suitability for this performance in a specific context.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 549 - 569
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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27 Personal communication with Kate Loveman.

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31 Pepys, Diary, v, 26 Oct. 1664, p. 307.

32 Ibid., i, 7 Dec. 1660, p. 312.

33 Ibid., ix, 15 May 1668, p. 200.

34 Ibid., ix, 6 Dec. 1668, p. 385.

35 Ibid., ix, 30 Jan. 1669, p. 432.

36 Ibid., iii, 22 Dec. 1662, p. 289.

37 Ibid., viii, 1 July 1667, p. 313.

38 Ibid., ix, 26 May 1668, p. 213.

39 Ibid., viii, 4 June 1667, pp. 250–1.

40 Ibid., ix, 30 Jan. 1669, p. 431.

41 Sharpe, Reading revolutions, p. 272.

42 Pepys, Diary, viii, 28 Oct. 1667, p. 507.

43 See, for example, ibid., ix, 30 Jan. 1669, p. 431; viii, 15 Nov. 1667, pp. 530–1; ix, 5 July 1668, p. 255.

44 Ibid., ix, 29 Jan. 1669, p. 431.

45 Chartier, ‘Leisure and sociability’, p. 104.

46 Pepys, Diary, viii, 21 May 1667, p. 225.

47 Ibid., viii, 14 June 1667, p. 270.

48 Ibid., ix, 15 May 1668, p. 200.

49 Ibid., iv, 11 Aug. 1663, p. 273.

50 Ibid., iv, 31 July 1663, p. 257; viii, 1 July 1667, p. 313.

51 Ibid., vi, 12 Nov. 1665, pp. 296–7.

52 Sherman, John Dee, p. 50.

53 Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: the unequalled self (London, 2002), pp. 123, 129.

54 Ibid., p. 300.

55 Pepys, Diary, i, 15 Oct. 1660, p. 266; ii, 20 Nov. 1661, p. 217.

56 Ibid., viii, 15 Sept. 1667, p. 438.

57 Francis Osborne, Advice to a son (Oxford, 1658); Pepys, Diary, ii, 23 Jan. 1661, p. 22; iv, 5 Apr. 1663, p. 96.

58 Robert Hooke, Micrographia (London, 1665); Pepys, Diary, vi, 21 Jan. 1665, p. 18.

59 Pepys, Diary, i, 11 Sept. 1660, p. 243.

60 Ibid., ix, 9 Feb. 1668, p. 59.

61 Ibid., viii, 23 June 1667, p. 284.

62 Sherman, John Dee, p. 50.

63 Sharpe, Reading revolutions, p. 312.

64 Pepys, Diary, ix, 16 Nov. 1668, p. 365; i, 17 Mar. 1660, p. 90; vi, 5 Oct. 1665, p. 252.

65 Ibid., iv, 30 Nov. 1663, p. 402.

66 Ibid., iv, 19 July 1663, p. 235.

67 Francis Bacon, ‘De fortuna’, from Sermones fideles; included in Operum moralium et civilium (London, 1638), pp. 226–8.

68 Pepys, Diary, ix, 21 Aug. 1668, p. 284, 12 Oct. 1668, p. 327.

69 Ibid., iv, 4 Feb. 1663, p. 33.

70 Ibid., i, 14 July 1660, p. 200.

71 Ibid., iii, 10 June 1662, pp. 105–6.

72 Ibid., ix, 8 Feb. 1668, p. 58.

73 Ibid., iv, 17 Apr. 1663, p. 105.

74 Ibid., iv, 21 Apr. 1663, p. 107.

75 Ibid., iv, 25 May 1663, p. 162.

76 Ibid., ix, 18 Aug. 1668, p. 291, 10 Jan. 1668, p. 17; viii, 10 Aug. 1667, p. 380.

77 Tomalin, Unequalled self, p. 89.

78 Pepys, Diary, ii, 10 Feb. 1661, p. 35.

79 Ibid., v, 24 July 1664, p. 220.

80 Ibid., vi, 1 Oct. 1665, p. 247.

81 Ibid., vi, 5 Nov. 1665, p. 289.

82 Ibid., i, 22 July 1660, p. 1.

83 Ibid., i, 21 Oct. 1660, p. 270.

84 Ibid., iv, 15 Nov. 1663, p. 383.

85 Ibid., iv, 5 June 1663, p. 174.

86 Ibid., viii, 27 May 1667, p. 238.

87 Ibid., vi, 12 Nov. 1665, pp. 296–7; vii, 21 Oct. 1666, p. 336.

88 Ibid., viii, 19 May 1667, p. 223.

89 Ibid., iii, 10 Feb. 1662, p. 26.

90 Woolf, Reading history, p. 121.

91 Grafton and Jardine, ‘“Studied for action”’, pp. 74–5.

92 Woolf, Reading history, p. 124.

93 Jardine and Sherman, ‘Pragmatic readers’, p. 106.

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95 John Selden, Mare clausum (Oxford, 1636); John Bland, Trade revived (London, 1660).

96 John Rushworth, Historical collections of private passages of state (London, 1659).

97 Pepys, Diary, iv, 26 Dec. 1663, p. 435.

98 Ibid., vi, 15 Jan. 1665, p. 10.

99 Rushworth, Historical collections. The account of Buckingham's impeachment is on pp. 307–60. Pepys, Diary, viii, 9 Jan. 1667, p. 10.

100 P. Heylin, Cyprianus Anglicus (London, 1668); Pepys, Diary, ix, 29 Nov. 1668, p. 379.

101 Letters of William Cecil collected in anon, ed., Cabala, sive, scrinia sacra (London, 1663), pp. 134–78. Pepys, Diary, viii, 1 July 1667, p. 313.

102 Pepys, Diary, ii, 18 Aug. 1661, p. 157.

103 Ibid., ix, 17 Mar. 1668, p. 120, 1 Jan. 1668, p. 1.

104 Ibid., iii, 6 Aug. 1662, p. 157, 24 Dec. 1662, p. 291.

105 Ibid., iv, 18 Nov. 1663, p. 386.

106 Ibid., viii, 26 May 1667, p. 236.

107 Ibid., ii, 22 Jan. 1661, p. 21.

108 Ibid., ix, 10 Jan. 1668, p. 17.

109 Ibid., viii, 10 Aug. 1667, p. 380.

110 Ibid., iii, 26 Dec. 1662, p. 294.

111 Ibid., iv, 6 Feb. 1663, p. 35.

112 Ibid., iv, 28 Nov. 1663, p. 400.

113 Ibid., viii, 10 June 1667, p. 258.

114 Ibid., viii, 2 June 1667, p. 247.

115 Ibid., ix, 30 Jan. 1669.

116 Ibid., vi, 9 Aug. 1665, p. 186; vii, 14 Nov. 1666, p. 369.

117 Ibid., viii, 21 May 1667, p. 225.

118 Ibid., v, 13 Nov. 1664, p. 320.

119 Anna Battigelli, ‘John Dryden's angry readers’, in Jenny Andersen and Elizabeth Sauer, eds., Books and readers in early modern England: material studies (Philadelphia, 2002), pp. 261–81.

120 Jajdelska, ‘Income, ideology and childhood reading’, p. 60.

121 Hall, ‘The uses of literacy’, pp. 54–7.

122 Dobranski, Milton, pp. 38–9.

123 Love, Scribal publication, p. 197.

124 Woolf, Reading history, p. 118.

125 Thomas Churchyard, The mirror of man, and manners of men (London, 1594); quoted in Randall Ingram, ‘Lego ego: reading seventeenth-century books of epigrams’, in Andersen and Sauer, eds., Books and readers, pp. 160–76.

126 Pepys, Diary, iv, 10 Dec. 1663, p. 410.

127 Woolf, Reading history, p. 106.

128 Ibid., p. 117.

129 Pepys, Diary, i, 15 Feb. 1660, pp. 56–7; v, 4 Feb. 1664, p. 38.

130 Ibid., vii, 1 Dec. 1666, p. 393.

131 Ibid., viii, 11 Aug. 1667, p. 382.

132 Love, Scribal publication, p. 223.

133 Woolf, Reading history, p. 18.

134 Pepys, Diary, ii, 2 Jan. 1661, p. 4.

135 Ibid., i, 5 Feb. 1660, p. 42.

136 Ibid., v, 4 Feb. 1664, p. 38.

137 Ibid., iv, 10 Aug. 1663, p. 270; v, 22 Jan. 1664, p. 55; ix, 9 Jan. 1669, p. 411; ix, 24 Apr. 1668, p. 173.

138 Ibid., vii, 18 Apr. 1666, p. 103.

139 Ibid., vi, 15 Jan. 1665, p. 10.

140 Ibid., iii, 19 Dec. 1662, p. 286.

141 Osborne, Advice, p. 17.

142 Pepys, Diary, viii, 10 Apr. 1667, p. 162.

143 Ibid., iii, 22 Dec. 1662, p. 288.

144 Ibid., ix, 3 Apr. 1668, p. 148.

145 Ibid., iii, 24 Dec. 1662, p. 291.

146 John Bland, Trade revived (London, 1660).

147 Sharpe, Reading revolutions, pp. 52, 53.

148 Pepys, Diary, i, 26 Oct. 1660, p. 275.

149 Ibid., ix, 25 Dec. 1668, p. 401.

150 Ibid., ix, 20 Sept. 1668, p. 311.

151 Ibid., iii, 6 Oct. 1662, p. 214.

152 Tobias Gentleman, England's way to win wealth (London, 1614), p. 3.

153 Henry King, A sermon preached the 30th of Jan. at White-Hall (London, 1665); Pepys, Diary, vi, 12 Mar. 1665, p. 54.

154 Ernst Robert Curtius, trans. Willard R. Trask, European literature and the Latin middle ages (London, 1979), p. 70.

155 Thomas Fuller, Church-history of Britain (London, 1662).

156 Pepys, Diary, viii, 21 Dec. 1667, p. 585.

157 John Davies, The history of Algiers and its slavery (London, 1666), sig. A3.

158 Gregorio Leti, trans. William Aglionby, Il nipotismodi Roma (London, 1669), sig. A2.

159 Arrigo Davila, trans. Cotterell and Aylesbury, Historie of the civill warres of France (London, 1647).

160 William Dugdale, Origines juridiciales (London, 1666); Joseph Glanville, Some philosophical considerations touching the being of witches and witchcraft (London, 1666); Fulke Greville, The life of the renowned Sir Philip Sidney (London, 1651).

161 Pepys, Diary, i, 2 May 1660, p. 122.