Old Books for the New Year

 

Everybody’s Pepys: The Diary of Samuel Pepys 1660-1669 Abridged from The Complete Copyright Text and Edited by O. F. Marshead with 60 Illustrations by Ernest H. Shephard (Second Printing 1926)

I’ve been reading a version of Pepys’ Diary on Kindle (atrociously riddled with errors, bad punctuation, and the ‘racier’ passages edited out) and decided I wanted to get an ‘in real life version’. I happened to know there was an edition illustrated by Ernest H. Shephard (the original Winnie-the-Pooh artist; he used to work for Punch) that was sort of a companion to his Everybody’s Boswell. The copy I ordered was ancient and lacked a cover, but only about $10, even with shipping.  No racy bits here either, but much better set, and some nice pictures.

“Samuel Pepys PRS (/piːps/;^[1] 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no maritime experience, but he rose to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and King James II through patronage, diligence, and his talent for administration.

“The detailed private diary that Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century [when it was finally deciphered] and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War, and the Great Fire of London.” – Wikipedia.

Book of the Three Dragons, by Kenneth Morris (1930; this edition 2004). Cold Spring Press. Foreword by Douglas A. Anderson.

I first heard about this book when it was mentioned in a collection of essays on fantasy by Ursula K. LeGuin, The Language of the Night. It was in an essay called “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie”, where it was praised for having the genuine Fantasy accent. This essay is actually mentioned by Douglas A. Anderson in his Foreword. Anderson is an established authority on Tolkien and the history of Fantasy in general (see elsewhere in this blog).

It was on the strength of LeGuin’s recommendation that I tried reading the Kenneth Morris short story collection The Dragon Path, but never really found my way into those tales. This retelling of The Mabinogion appears to be Morris’s one breakout success, and even a cursory glance assures me that it is a genuine enchantment. This edition includes the never-before published original conclusion of the book.

This reprint appeared in the wake of the Jackson LOTR films, when classic fantasy experienced another upsurge in the publishing world. Cold Spring Press is responsible for other volumes in my collection, such as The People’s Guide to J. R. R. Tolkien and Tolkien in the Land of Myth.