PEPYS, Samuel

The Diary of Samuel Pepys. A new complete transcription edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews ... [complete in 11 volumes]

London, Bell and Hyman, 1978 to 1983 (mixed editions)/ 1970 to 1983 (first thus).

Octavo, eleven volumes; cloth; a fine set with the excellent dustwrappers.

The definitive edition: 'nine volumes of text and footnotes (with an introduction of 120 pages in Volume 1), a tenth volume of commentary (The Companion) and an eleventh volume of index. Each of the first eight volumes contains one whole calendar year of the diary, from January to December [commencing in 1660]. The ninth volume runs from January 1668 to May 1669. The Diary was first published in abbreviated form in 1825. A succession of new editions, re-issues and selections, published in the Victorian era, made the diary one of the best-known books, and Pepys one of the best-known figures, of English history. But ... the present edition, which has been in preparation for many years, is therefore the first in which the entire diary is printed and in which an attempt has been made at systematic comment on it' (publisher's blurb).