New full translation of Pepys' coded rape diary, from the shorthand and Franco-Latino polyglot of the original. Will you be reading his tales of predation upon London's servant girls?
NYT review:>By the time Claire Tomalin’s thorough biography of Pepys was published, in 2002, she knew enough to sprinkle her book with references to her subject’s “disquieting sexual practices” and “sexual rampages.” Tomalin referred to a “sexual attack,” and a “sexual assault.”>De la Bédoyère’s book, “The Confessions of Samuel Pepys,” goes further. The author has performed nearly forensic new translations of Pepys’s diary, drilling down especially on the material in foreign languages. This was essentially a secret code: Pepys was a polyglot who could pun in two languages within a single sentence.>The resulting book, nearly 400 pages, is a sobering document. De la Bédoyère focuses almost entirely on his subject’s sex life, and he delivers, in Pepys’s own words, sorry account after sorry account. He is as relentless as Inspector Javert. It’s difficult to read.1/2
>>25188785>Where to even begin? Pepys routinely groped his maids and servants, whom he seemed to consider fair game. He’d fondle their breasts while they helped him dress and force them to bring him to orgasm. In one indelible scene, he lectures a maid about taking care of her honor while all of this is taking place. He also routinely beat them, and he beat Elizabeth, his long-suffering wife.>He kept mistresses but also pursued any woman unlucky enough to be in his general vicinity — shopkeepers, actresses, other men’s daughters and wives. All were of lesser status, and he operated with impunity. He would forcibly kiss them and try to get them to touch what he referred to as his “thing.” One young woman escaped by threatening to prick him with a pin.>Pepys appeared to demand sex two or three times a day, and threw himself at so many women that, when writing in his diary a few days later, he could not always remember them all. He extorted sex from woman after woman who came to him seeking navy jobs, or other favors, for their husbands. He considered this his due.>What he could not get freely, he was determined to take. Pepys wrote about pulling women out of bed and molesting them while they slept. He describes using “force” or “great force,” so much that sometimes he injured himself, to achieve his sexual aims. The word for this is rape.2/2
Suck my pepys
>>25188788>Pepys routinely groped his maids and servants, whom he seemed to consider fair gameIs he wrong thoughever on this part? If you're a maid, that's just an implied part of your job description.
>>25188784recently found a bio of Edward Gorey which was unreadable because every. single. paragraph had to support the author's supposition that Gorey was gay.
>>25188798The difference here is that it's the persons own words, from the horse's mouth so to speak.
Late one evening in February 1664, Pepys came upon several men raping a “pretty wench,” a street vendor he had “much eyed lately” himself. “They seemed to drag her by some force, but the wench went, and I believe had her turn served,” he wrote in his diary. “But God forgive me, what thoughts and wishes I had of being in their place.”
On 25 March 1668, Pepys records that he has given “Mrs Daniels” eight pairs of gloves “for tocar my prick con her hand.”
>>25188792>The result is an extraordinarily detailed snapshot of life seen through the eyes of a man for whom no day was complete unless he had managed to fondle at least one woman’s “mameles” (breasts) on his way to or from work.All in a day's work for Sammy.
>>25188788Rape is a social construct, pisses me off that people insist on putting labels on everything
Pepys also records occasions when he loses his temper with household pets, a monkey which he beats almost senseless, and a pet dog, locked in the cellar for peeing on the floor. He regrets losing his temper at the time and promises himself that in future he will be more patient.
pepys
>>25188785>The author has performed nearly forensic new translations of Pepys’s diary, drilling down especially on the material in foreign languages. This was essentially a secret code: Pepys was a polyglot who could pun in two languages within a single sentenceIn other words: the author has already decided Pepys is a monster in the MeToo era, so he makes sure to read every single ambiguous or opaque passage in only one way. Shan't be reading it.
>one chance at life >cant grope maids
>>25188845The purpose of this book is not to create a gratuitously distorted or scurrilous account of Pepys’s private life. Instead, the intention is to complete Pepys’s own story, because for one reason or another, all the previous transcribers of his diary in some way sought either to omit or occlude an important component of his testimony. The revelations here of the content and the methods Pepys used to compose the passages concerned should now take their proper place as important components of the diary and evidence for Pepys’s personality. They may serve to stimulate further study of this fascinating aspect of the diary text, especially the light they throw on the way he used the shorthand ... Revised readings, which were not anticipated when the work for this book began, have been introduced where they fulfil one or more of the following criteria: they are more plausible and accurate transcriptions of the shorthand, better match contemporary spellings and usages, and correspond more convincingly to the context by generating translations that make sense as opposed to not doing so.https://www.pepysdiary.com/indepth/2025/08/04/confessions-samuel-pepys/
Sample of the translation work>I realized that L&M had mistranscribed some of the polyglot because their versions do not make sense. These are the main areas where they made mistakes unlike the rest of the text where there are very, very few errors. Some of the errors are so obvious it is difficult to understand how they were made.>Let's take 3 June 1666 as an example. L&M have 'devante and backward'. 'devante' is not a word. It does not exist in Spanish or any other language, whether now or back then. The shorthand reads d(e)l(a)nt(e). 'delante' is in Percivale's 1623 Spanish Dictionary which P owned (it's still at Magdalene') and means 'forward'. Thus 'forward and backward'.>On 13 October 1663 P uses 'forward and backward' in a way that makes it obvious what he meant on 3 June 1666. I could cite various other examples of erroneous words.
Any oral sex?
>>25188784What is the best way to read Pepys just out of personal interest? I picked up the first volume of an old 60s publication from my Uni library, but I feel it cut a lot out, as I have read that the sexual stuff was cut out until later (70s?) publications. A used bookshop near me has a three volume Folio set of abridged Pepys for £20. I don't necessarily want to read every single volume, as its a lot of time to spend with the daily innane ins and outs of his life. What is the definitive abridged Pepys? One that includes the important events (Plague, Fire) with some amount of the daily life and including the sex and rape stuff?
>>25188785I feel it's clumsy to compare Javert to a sex predator. Why not some other creature of insatiable indifferent appetite?
>>25189249This new book (OP) has the sex and rape stuff, all the others are bowdlerised or excluded. The original diary is eleven volumes and written in both shorthand codes and a hodgepodge of French, Latin, Spanish, and English words. Pick up this new sex one, and any of the abridged selections desu, or read the bits that interest you, like the plague and fire.
>>25189258It's The New York Times, not The New Yorker.
