Reading Samuel Pepys's Shorthand: an online talk and workshop
Find out how Pepys kept his secret diary and have a go at reading the shorthand he wrote it in for yourself!
Date and time
Location
Online
About this event
- Event lasts 1 hour
In the 1660s, Samuel Pepys kept his secret diary in shorthand, to protect it from prying eyes. His diary was first published 200 years ago and is now world famous. However, even today very few people have actually read Pepys’s diary in the form he wrote it.
At this online event, we’re going to break that tradition by reading some of his shorthand.
Author Kate Loveman will introduce Pepys and his diary, along with the basics of the seventeenth-century shorthand system that he used. We’ll have a go at reading some brief bits of shorthand and find out about the extra tactics Pepys used to disguise his most private passages.
This is an event for adults who are interested in Pepys or in shorthand, but no prior knowledge of either Pepys or shorthand is required!
If you’d like to join in with the shorthand deciphering, you may find it useful to download the shorthand guide and have it to hand during the session. It’s several pages from a seventeenth-century shorthand manual. You can download it here: https://pepyshistory.le.ac.uk/shorthand-workshops/
Images of the diary in this event are used with the permission of the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Frequently asked questions
He was a naval administrator, who worked in London in the 1660s. His diary describes the restoration of Charles II, the plague, and the Great Fire of London. It also features a lot of court scandal and much about his personal life (including material judged unprintable till the 1970s).
A shorthand is a system of symbols designed to help the user write quickly and, sometimes, secretly. It may look like a code but shorthands were often widely shared systems. Pepys used a popular 17th-century shorthand to write his diary.
To access the link for the event, you'll need to register and then, on the day, log on to Eventbrite using the email address you used for your ticket. When you click on the zoom link, you'll be asked to log in to Zoom, using either your browser or the Zoom app.
It’s for people over 18 because we’re going to be hearing a bit about Pepys's sex life, so this is not aimed at children. You can find shorthand info for primary school children that Kate wrote on the London Museum website: https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/schools-communities/school
I’m a Professor at the University of Leicester, specialising in Restoration history and literature. I’ve edited Pepys’s journal for the Everyman edition, and have a new book out called The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary, which includes new examination of Pepys's shorthand.