Other Lives in Samuel Pepys’s Diary: A Collection of Creative Writing inspired by Pepys’s journal of the 1660s

This collection features seven pieces of historical fiction (prose and poetry), each inspired by figures who appear in Samuel Pepys’s diary of the 1660s.  

The authors are Liz Cashdan, Selina Lock, Ben Payne, Narimaan Shafi, Hazel Stuart, Elizabeth Uter, and Sue Wright. 

These pieces were developed during creative writing workshops run by the ‘Reimagining the Restoration’ project. The workshops introduced members of the public to new research on Pepys’s diary, with a focus on figures from groups that are under-represented in standard historical sources. 

The three people from the diary who feature in this collection are Jane Birch (a maidservant); Mingo, a young Black man who had been enslaved as child; and an unnamed Deaf boy whose signed conversation Pepys observed at a party. There is a historical introduction to each figure by Kate Loveman.