BOOK REVIEW-The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys. A Novel

There must have been more than a few novels inspired by St Olave Hart Street and the area around it - and if not, there are plenty to be written! Jack Jewers opens his imaginary “post diary” life of Pepys with a veiled reference to one of the many legends associated with this place - the burial of Mother Goose here (who he calls Mother Quick in the novel) - said by some to have been the Madam of the Winchester Geese - streetworkers licensed by the Bishop of Winchester - who we glimpse in the novel, in a flash. 
Within the first few short chapters, arranged as diary entries, we encounter in rapid succession many of the things commonly associated with Pepys today: fire, epidemics, the Navy, war with the Dutch, anxiety about his social status, fashion and financial standing, bawdy language, balls and bowels. 

Then, Pepys and his aid Will Hewer set off to the Navy Office in Portsmouth to unravel a multiple murder mystery centred on fraud and corruption, the unravelling of which forms the bulk of this highly readable novel. 

Pernickety Pepys fans, as Jack notes at the end of the book, may take issue with some of the anachronisms. But this is certainly no caricature of the man himself, whose days of philandering and sexual exploitation of women are over. Aged just 36, Pepys’ prowess in the bedchamber is a thing of the past. The chiseled-torsoed Will Hewer is on the pull now, but in an evidently more gentlemanly manner. 

In a novel way the text seems to aim to rebalance some of the less comic aspects of Pepys’ life. Throughout the book women are empowered. In one of the more obvious fictional departures, Elisabeth finds the diary and reads it, threatening to leave Samuel for good - and we encounter a band of female mercenaries fighting for justice. The latter is not such an anachronism as it seems; Jack explains this was inspired by the key role of women bringing to an end the Siege of Chester during the Civil War. 

Jack is publishing Seething Lane, a sequel to The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys, in September and we are delighted that he will be joining us on Tuesday 10th November to talk about the challenge of bringing Samuel Pepys' world to life in fiction.

The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys by Jack Jewers was published by Moonflower Press in 2023.