The ''Diary'' of
John Evelyn
John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diary, diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society.
John Evelyn's Diary, ...
(31 October 1620 – 27 February 1706), a gentlemanly
Royalist
A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of gove ...
and ''virtuoso'' of the seventeenth century, was first published in 1818 (2nd edition, 1819) under the title ''Memoirs Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn'', in an edition by
William Bray. Bray was assisted by
William Upcott, who had access to the Evelyn family archives. The diary of Evelyn's contemporary
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys ( ; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English writer and Tories (British political party), Tory politician. He served as an official in the Navy Board and Member of Parliament (England), Member of Parliament, but is most r ...
was first published in 1825, and became more celebrated; but the publication of Evelyn's work in part prompted the attention given to Pepys's.
Evelyn's diary has entries running from 1640, when the author was a student at the
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...
, to 1706. Its claim to be a
diary
A diary is a written or audiovisual memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digita ...
, as opposed to a memoir, is not strict; up to around 1683 the entries were not daily additions, but were compiled much later from notes, and show in some cases the benefits of hindsight. When his travels are described, buildings or pictures may be described anachronistically, revealing the later use of other sources.
Editions
After Bray's initial editing and selection, other editors worked on the ''Diary'' in the following century. A revised edition in 1827 was edited by Upcott, and was reprinted in 4 volumes in 1879 with a ''Life'' by
Henry Benjamin Wheatley (reissued in 1906). There was a four-volume edition by
John Forster (1850–1852). A later edition was by
Austin Dobson (3 vols., 1906).
The total number of words in the manuscript is over half a million, of which Bray's edition printed under 60%. A modern scholarly edition, in six volumes, edited by
Esmond Samuel de Beer was published by Clarendon Press in 1955, a project originating in the early 1930s.
The Oxford Standard Authors edition of the ''Diary'', edited by E. S. de Beer from his six-volume edition, was first published by Oxford University Press in 1959.
References
External links
1850 edition, at archive.org* 1857 edition (William Bray, ed., revised by John Forster
vol 1vol 2
together with two volumes of correspondence
vol 3vol 4
(via archive.org)
1889 edition, at Google Books
* 1901 edition, at Project Gutenberg
Vol. IVol. II
1906 edition, at Google Books
* 1906 edition (Austin Dobson, ed.
vol 1vol 2
vol 3
(via archive.org)
*
{{Authority control
Diaries
1818 non-fiction books
Books by John Evelyn