5/18/2023 0 Comments The unequalled self![]() ![]() With Tomalin we revisit the scene as modern tourists. Pepys recorded an incident in April 1664 when he chanced on his boss's wife, Lady Sandwich, as she sat on a chamber pot. Palliatives of oil of earthworms, cinnamon and chicory make matters worse. Her description of his surgical process is awful in its vividness. For example, in her acknowledgments she thanks the Real Tennis Club of Cambridge for giving her the diameter (2in) of the real as opposed to modern tennis ball, which Pepys's kidney stone (removed in May 1658) equalled. Claire Tomalin, in her turn, applies unflinching scrutiny to the whole of his life. Pepys watched himself behaving well or badly and, for 10 years from 1660, wrote the details down. The "unequalled self" of the subtitle is from an essay by Robert Louis Stevenson commending the "unflinching sincerity" of self-disclosure in Pepys's diary. This boook is a great achievement and a huge pleasure. ![]()
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