[HN Gopher] The Diary of Samuel Pepys
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       The Diary of Samuel Pepys
        
       Author : dang
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2023-01-03 03:50 UTC (19 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.pepysdiary.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.pepysdiary.com)
        
       | pseudolus wrote:
       | For those seeking more background about Samuel Pepys, Claire
       | Tomalin wrote a biography "Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self"
       | that more fully provides a context for his diary entries. [0]
       | 
       | On a tangent I was surprised to learn that I'd been
       | mispronouncing his last name for years. Phonetically it's "peeps"
       | and not "pep is" as I'd believed.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Pepys-Unequalled-Claire-
       | Tomali...
        
         | yamtaddle wrote:
         | > On a tangent I was surprised to learn that I'd been
         | mispronouncing his last name for years. Phonetically it's
         | "peeps" and not "pep is" as I'd believed.
         | 
         | It's a shibboleth for English lit majors, like knowing Euler is
         | "oiler" for math folks.
        
       | simplicio wrote:
       | I've been slowly reading my way through the Diary on the linked
       | website, a few entries at a time, since last year. I haven't
       | tried to "sync" my read through with the other people reading
       | through the diary in "real-time", one entry a day, but the fact
       | that a bunch of the commentators on the website do, and have done
       | so through multiple cycles starting in 2002, make the comments of
       | the diary sort of a weird historical record in and of themselves.
       | 
       | So you have one set of comments of people referencing the
       | invasion of Iraq, the Indian Ocean tsunami, etc. as they were
       | happening. Then another set 10 years later bemoaning the Great
       | Recession, etc. Then a final set comparing events in the Diary to
       | the COVID pandemic. And on top of all that, the actual diary
       | entry discussing what were currently developing events 400 years
       | ago.
       | 
       | Reading through an entire page at once gives a kind of weird,
       | poignant, feeling of the passage of time.
        
       | philgyford wrote:
       | Hi, that's my site. It's been running for twenty years, through
       | two complete cycles of the diary, and we've just started the
       | third.
       | 
       | You can read it on the site (or via its RSS), or get each diary
       | entry via email https://buttondown.email/pepysdiary , or get
       | excerpts throughout the day in "real time" on Twitter
       | https://twitter.com/samuelpepys , or the same on Mastodon
       | https://mastodon.social/@samuelpepys
       | 
       | Feel free to AMA
        
         | StringyBob wrote:
         | Just wanted to say hello, as someone who used to regularly
         | browse haddock.org for interesting links before hackernews
         | existed!
        
           | dang wrote:
           | Wow, I never saw that site. I thought of mining
           | https://www.haddock.org/directory/ for obscure links for HN,
           | but
           | https://www.haddock.org/directory/previouslinks/index.html
           | doesn't work.
        
         | saberdancer wrote:
         | Thank you for your service. I follow the Twitter account and I
         | am always amused when I see what a naughty boy Samuel was.
         | Seeing various people join in and comment, with a weird sort of
         | "meta" that was created around it is always a pleasure.
         | 
         | Seeing these longer diary entries I wonder does the Twitter
         | account publish full content of the diary entries or just
         | selected parts?
        
           | philgyford wrote:
           | Only selected parts. There's a lot of stuff that isn't super
           | interesting, or isn't super interesting in fragments, or just
           | doesn't work as short fragments. So there's a lot of
           | editorial decisions about what would make good tweets - often
           | "boring" bits make for good, relatable tweets though.
           | 
           | I often edit the tweets by omitting a few words if it's
           | required to make them fit into 280 characters. Which is
           | easier than the first few years when I had to fit them into
           | 140 characters.
        
             | niccolop wrote:
             | There was a good exhibition a few years ago at the naval
             | museum in Greenwich. They also made use of the diaries.
             | Your website has proven a great follow up, thank you.
        
       | kerrsclyde wrote:
       | I love this site. Tech-wise it's been put together which such
       | attention to detail.
       | 
       | There was a really interesting podcast with it's owner broadcast
       | some time ago:
       | https://runninginproduction.com/podcast/32-building-a-site-a...
        
       | daverol wrote:
       | If you are in Cambridge,UK you can visit the library which holds
       | the books he collected (including his diaries):
       | https://www.magd.cam.ac.uk/pepys He designed the bookcases which
       | hold the circa 3000 volumes shelved according to height. His will
       | stipulated that the books are to be held in the library 'without
       | addition or subtraction'
        
       | dang wrote:
       | They* started a new cycle of this. Yesterday was the opening:
       | https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/01/01/.
       | 
       | One colourful Pepys quote:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20579630.
       | 
       | * where by "they" I mean philgyford -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34230074. Bravo!
        
       | robin_reala wrote:
       | I did a production of the _Diary_ for Standard Ebooks[1], it's
       | still the longest thing on there (amazingly enough given that we
       | also have _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ ). Phil from
       | pepysdiary.com was a big help and pointed out a bunch of OCR
       | errors that he'd previously fixed for the site, which I flowed
       | straight back into the SE production.
       | 
       | [1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-pepys/the-diary
        
         | philgyford wrote:
         | Ooh, I've probably got some more since then, because I hadn't
         | finished working my way through the diary (for the second time)
         | when I sent you that lot.
        
           | robin_reala wrote:
           | If you've got them lying around and want to email them over
           | (same address as last time) then I'll get them in. Thanks!
        
       | Maultasche wrote:
       | I read through the entire thing over many years when the site
       | first began and a new entry was being posted every day. I found
       | it to be surprisingly interesting and I enjoyed reading about
       | daily life in the 17th century. The comments could also be quite
       | informative. I recommend it to anyone who think they might be
       | interested.
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-03 23:02 UTC)