Pepys: A Biography

by Richard Ollard

The definitive biography of Samuel Pepys.

Samuel Pepys is unique: the scope and candor of his Diary makes it one of the greatest books ever written and one of the most important historical documents in English. A man of intense curiosity about life and his surroundings, Pepys lived through some of England's most turbulent times including the Plague, the Fire of London and the Glorious Revolution. This biography provides the key to the contrasts and contradictions of Pepys' character and skillfully draws together the many threads running through his life to reveal the man behind the famous Diary.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Richard Laurence Ollard was an English historian and biographer. He is best known for his work on the English Restoration period. He was educated at Eton College where he was a King's Scholar. He joined the Navy during the Second World War and won an exhibition to New College, Oxford at its conclusion. For twelve years from 1948 to 1959 Ollard taught history at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in London. In 1960 he joined the publisher Collins as a senior editor, where he worked until his retirement in 1983. After his retirement from Collins he continued to research and publish widely and lived in Morecombelake, Dorset.

Interests and achievements:

- In 1992 he was awarded the Caird Medal by the Trustees of the National Maritime Museum.
- In 1997 he was joint winner of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetime's contribution to the pleasure of reading.
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL)
- Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA)
- Past Vice President of the Navy Records Society
- An honorary member of the Samuel Pepys Club

Reviews

[Betawolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly middle-of-the-road biography by a well-informed if not particularly captivating author. I picked this up as a consolation prize when I failed to turn up a copy of Pepys' famous Diary in a search of a secondhand bookshop somewhere. I didn't feel like I was short-changed, and certainly know much more about Pepys' life now than whatever hazy recollection of an aside in a history lesson I had previously retained, but this book definitely benefited from being my travel read, competing with my attention only for the alternative of staring out of a train window.

One of the problems with the book is that it is not the Diary, and Ollard has to restrain himself from diving into all the riches of Pepys' own hand, while of course it is a key source for that portion of his life. The overall effect, for a good portion of this biography, is that you feel as if you are reading a book review -- Ollard comments on Pepys' life more than he summarises it, seeming to write for an audience that he presumes has already read the main source material. Book reviews are not necessarily terrible as a medium, and Ollard is at the very least much better prepared to review his book than I am his, but it does negate the aliveness of a narration when the author is as much addressing scholarly opinion on a particular debate as he is laying out the facts. At times I did wonder why Ollard had felt the need to write a biography at all, especially as he seems to regard a previous biography by Bryant as a masterpiece worthy of only a few critical notes.

Pepys himself is something of an interesting character, a bureaucrat-hero whose chief glories lie in efficient administration, meticulously documented paperwork, and maintaining a vast correspondence with his many underlings and colleagues. He was corrupt, but not very much so by the standards of his day, and his attempts to introduce professional standards for service and maintain discipline in the Navy seem to have been largely positive developments in an uphill battle against institutional malaise. That said, the Navy did not in general cover itself in glory during his time administering for it. He has a lot more value as a sort of office-worker lens into the events of the Civil War, Protectorate and the Glorious Revolution, a time when the constitutional questions that shape modern Britain were all being hotly debated.

Presumably there are better biographies of Pepys than this -- Ollard himself seems to think so -- but it was a serviceable enough account, and contained some pointers both to interesting primary sources and well-regarded scholarship, so it could form a good introduction for broader reading.