Samuel Pepys's Library, as famous in his own lifetime as it is now, was willed by Pepys to Magdalene, the college he had attended in the 1650s. It finally arrived in 1724 to be housed in a handsome new building. A remarkable collection of some 3,000 items, the library includes medieval manuscripts and early printed books by Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde; a naval collection, reflecting Pepys's role as Secretary to the Admiralty; works by Pepys's contemporaries and members of the Royal Society, including Newton's Principia Mathematica; and an unrivalled array of ephemera - letters, playbills and invitations. Alongside the Pepys Library, Magdalene has an impressive historic collection, housed in the beautiful Old Library rooms. Evolving from a series of major benefactions to the college across nearly 500 years, combined with the books routinely acquired for the use of students and scholars in the past, the Old Library contains medieval manuscripts, incunabula, prints and papers, as well as the ancient records of the college. Contents: Preface; Introduction; The Library of Samuel Pepys; The Pepys Building; Pepys the Collector; The Diary; Furnishing a Library; The Old Library: Heart of the College; Building a Collection; The Treasures of the Old Library; Special Collections; Objects in the Collections; The Magdalene College Archives; The Work of the Historic Libraries: - Exhibitions, - Conservation, - Scholars and Readers; List of (Fellow) Librarians.

Second volume in two-volume catalogue of Pepys's outstanding collection of 17c ballads. The Pepys ballad collection is the largest surviving collection of English ballads printed in London in the seventeenth century, and is an outstanding source of English popular culture of the period. Pepys himself grouped the ballads into subjects, but a proper catalogue has long been needed by scholars, and this complex and difficult task has at last been completed. As a result, the full riches of the collection, already available in facsimile*, are now properly accessible. The second part of the catalogue consists of the indexes. Titles and sub-titles are indexed together, as these are often interchangeable. First lines and refrains provide text indexes; tunes and music are a guide to the musical element; and imprints, licensing information and authors enable the printing history to be reconstructed. The Pepys Ballads: Facsimile Vols. I-V 085991 256 6, 450.00/$190.00

"This study uses [Pepys's] surviving papers to examine reading practices, collecting, and the exchange of information in the late 17th century"--Back cover.

An intimate portrait of two pivotal Restoration figures during one of the most dramatic periods of English history Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn are two of the most celebrated English diarists. They were also extraordinary men and close friends. This first full portrait of that friendship transforms our understanding of their times. Pepys was earthy and shrewd, while Evelyn was a genteel aesthete, but both were drawn to intellectual pursuits. Brought together by their work to alleviate the plight of sailors caught up in the Dutch wars, they shared an inexhaustible curiosity for life and for the exotic. Willes explores their mutual interests—diary-keeping, science, travel, and a love of books—and their divergent enthusiasms, Pepys for theater and music, Evelyn for horticulture and garden design. Through the richly documented lives of two remarkable men, Willes revisits the history of London and of England in an age of regicide, revolution, fire, and plague to reveal it also as a time of enthralling possibility.