This book contains two short extracts from the diaries of Samuel Pepys. Though Pepys was a politician, he is remembered above all for the diaries he kept over nearly ten years. Written in shorthand, they had to be deciphered before becoming accessible to modern readers. The first extract describes the arrival of the plague in London. The second offers a vivid account of the Great Fire of London: the flames spreading so quickly that nobody could contain them, the desperate destruction of untouched houses to halt the advance of the fire, and the endless carts piled high with belongings as people crowded the roads in search of safety. It is a deeply moving description, and I can hardly imagine what it must have been like for the poorer inhabitants who lost absolutely everything. An extremely fascinating text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“So down, with my heart full of trouble, to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who tells me that it begun this morning in the King’s bakers house in Pudding lane, and that it hath burned down St Magnes Church and most part of Fishstreete already. So I down to the waterside and there got a boat and through the bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Poor Michells house, as far as the Old Swan, already burned that way and the fire running further, that in a very little time it got as far as the Stillyard while I was there. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the River or bringing them into lighters that lay off. Poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats or clambering from one pair of stair by the waterside to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons I perceive were loath to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies till they were some of them burned, their wings, and fell down.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Taken from The Diary of Samuel Pepys. May 1st-June 30th 1665 and September 2nd-15th 1666.<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This book contains two short extracts from the diaries of Samuel Pepys. Though Pepys was a politician, he is remembered above all for the diaries he kept over nearly ten years. Written in shorthand, they had to be deciphered before becoming accessible to modern readers. The first extract describes the arrival of the plague in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21620,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[291,293],"tags":[56,112],"class_list":["post-21619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-2026","category-challenge-riquiqui-2026","tag-death","tag-history"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/getty-images-LYDaey9oIHo-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21619"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21637,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21619\/revisions\/21637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}