The Dark Side of Samuel Pepys

Society's First Sex Offender

Geoffrey Pimm

• Publisher: Pen & Sword History
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781526717290
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526717313
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

This historical biography reveals how the famous diarist of Restoration England used his professional position to act as a sexual predator.
Samuel Pepys is popularly known as the founder of the modern navy, a member of the Royal Society and, most of all, as a unique and frank diarist. Less well known is that he was a serial sexual offender by modern standards; a voyeur, a groper, and a rapist.
Set against the London society of Charles II's restoration, and extensively using Pepys' own words, this book concerns his numerous extramarital affairs. It demonstrates how he used his position of power and influence to advance the careers of his subordinates—in return for the sexual favors of their wives.
With his own descriptions, translated from the strange mix of languages and the seventeenth-century shorthand he used to camouflage the content, the reader witnesses in graphic detail how Pepys set about achieving his lascivious objectives – on occasion resorting to physical force where persuasion or bribery failed. Whether she be wife, daughter, mother, or humble maidservant, no woman was safe from his rapacious sexual appetite.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Pepys’ World
• Chapter 2 Pepys the Celebrity
• Chapter 3 Full Forty Times Over
• Chapter 4 Better to Marry than to Burn
• Chapter 5 A Woman’s Place
• Chapter 6 A Pretty Dutch Woman
• Chapter 7 Sunday Recreations
• Chapter 8 Servant Girls
• Chapter 9 A Pretty, Conceited Woman
• Chapter 10 Haberdasherie & Hanky-Panky
• Chapter 11 A Most Modest Woman
• Chapter 12 My Dear Mrs. Knipp
• Chapter 13 A Very Pretty Wench & Her Mother
• Chapter 14 The Carpenter’s Wife & Other Assignations
• Chapter 15 A Pretty Companion
• Chapter 16 Caught Red-Handed
• Chapter 17 The Storm Continues Unabated
• Chapter 18 Hell Hath No Fury
• Chapter 19 Some That Got Away
• Chapter 20 Last Love
• Chapter 21 Shame & Remorse?
• Chapter 22 Postscript
• Appendix A: The School of Venus
• Appendix B: The Bagwells
• Appendix C: Full Forty Times Over (full libretto)
• Appendix D: Ladies of Pepys’ acquaintanceship
• Appendix E: Female Servants in Pepys’ Household During the Diary Period
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Plate section