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PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF THE DIARY.
I. Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., comprising his Diary from 1659 to 1669, deciphered by the Rev. John Smith, A.B., of St. John's College, Cambridge, from the original Shorthand MS. in the Pepysian Library, and a Selection from his Private Correspondence. Edited by Richard, Lord Braybrooke. In two volumes. London, Henry Colburn . . . 1825. 4vo.
Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S. . . . Second edition. In five volumes. London, Henry Colburn . . . . 1828. 8vo.
Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; with a Life and Notes by Richard, Lord Braybrooke; the third edition, considerably enlarged. London, Henry Colburn . . . . 1848-49. 5 vols. sm. 8vo.
Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S. . . . The fourth edition, revised and corrected. In four volumes. London, published for Henry Colburn by his successors, Hurst and Blackett . . . 1854. 8vo.
The copyright of Lord Braybrooke's edition was purchased by the late Mr. Henry G. Bohn, who added the book to his Historical Library.
Nos. 1, 2 and 3 being out of copyright have been reprinted by various publishers.
No. 5 is out of print.
PARTICULARS OF THE LIFE OF SAMUEL PEPYS.
The family of Pepys is one of considerable antiquity in the east of England, and the Hon. Walter Courtenay Pepys
[Mr. W. C. Pepys has paid great attention to the history of his family, and in 1887 he published an interesting work entitled "Genealogy of the Pepys Family, 1273-1887," London, George Bell and Sons, which contains the fullest pedigrees of the family yet issued.]
says that the first mention of the name that he has been able to find is in the Hundred Rolls (Edw. I, 1273), where Richard Pepis and John Pepes are registered as holding lands in the county of Cambridge. In the next century the name of William Pepis is found in deeds relating to lands in the parish of Cottenham, co. Cambridge, dated 1329 and 1340 respectively (Cole MSS., British Museum, vol. i., p. 56; vol. xlii., p. 44). According to the Court Roll of the manor of Pelhams, in the parish of Cottenham, Thomas Pepys was "bayliffe of the Abbot of Crowland in 1434," but in spite of these references, as well as others to persons of the same name at Braintree, Essex, Depedale, Norfolk, &c., the first ancestor of the existing branches of the family from whom Mr. Walter Pepys is able to trace an undoubted descent, is "William Pepis the elder, of Cottenham, co. Cambridge," whose will is dated 20th March, 1519.
In 1852 a curious manuscript volume, bound in vellum, and entitled "Liber Talboti Pepys de instrumentis ad Feoda pertinentibus exemplificatis," was discovered in an old chest in the parish church of Bolney, Sussex, by the vicar, the Rev. John Dale, who delivered it to Henry Pepys, Bishop of Worcester, and the book is still in the possession of the family. This volume contains various genealogical entries, and among them are references to the Thomas Pepys of 1434 mentioned above, and to the later William Pepys. The reference to the latter runs thus:--
"A Noate written out of an ould Booke of my uncle William Pepys."