Reading and News-gathering in Samuel Pepys's Circle

塞缪尔·佩皮斯17世纪60年代的日记在普及复辟时期的知识方面发挥了核心作用，并继续成为历史学家和文学学者新见解的来源。在17世纪，新闻采集、阅读和闲谈是密切相关的活动。佩皮斯是一位新闻筛选专家，一位忠实的藏书家，以及根深蒂固的八卦，因此他的论文为研究阅读实践和恢复后几十年的文本传播提供了非常丰富的资源。为了更好地理解1660-1700年期间的阅读、出版和图书收藏的历史，我们需要利用佩皮斯提供的那种详细的、上下文相关的信息。研究佩皮斯的阅读行为鼓励，实际上是必要的，一个跨学科的方法，佩皮斯没有限制自己的小说和戏剧的兴趣，文学评论家或新闻和讽刺主要感兴趣的政治历史学家：他广泛阅读各种作品，包括科学论文，最新技术的描述，布道，行为书籍和民谣。我的研究项目超越佩皮斯的著名日记考虑的证据，他的图书馆生存在抹大拉学院，剑桥，他丰富的信件，和他的未发表和鲜为人知的文件（从购物清单到账簿）现在在博德利图书馆。其他证据来自佩皮斯的许多同事的文件和同时代的文件，如牧师贾尔斯更多。使用这些记录，我研究如何从一系列的主要流派的作品被佩皮斯和他的同时代人在1660年至1700年期间使用：什么因素通常促使阅读和收购的作品？在解释特定类型的文本时应优先考虑什么？书籍的所有权和展示对佩皮斯、他的朋友和同事有什么作用？塞缪尔·佩皮斯在某种程度上是一个非凡的读者，但他的好奇心和他对记录信息的关注意味着他的论文告诉我们很多关于阅读和新闻收集在恢复社会的一个横截面：贵族，商人，淑女和仆人的阅读活动在佩皮斯创建或与佩皮斯相关的记录中留下了痕迹。事实上，随着佩皮斯的事业和他的藏书爱好的发展，他建立了国际联系网络，在欧洲各地交换新闻，八卦，书籍和思想。至关重要的是，佩皮斯和他的联系人的论文提供了细节，使我们不仅可以追踪社会关系如何影响阅读习惯，而且还可以追踪口头、抄写和印刷媒体之间的关系。塞缪尔·佩皮斯因此站在本研究的中心，其目的是增加我们对在政治和图书贸易重大事件发生时信息接收和交换的理解。对于那些有兴趣的历史，这本书，恢复政治史，早期现代思想史和发展的流派这将证明是一个有趣的和容易接近的工作。

Samuel Pepys's diary of 1660s has played a central role in popularising knowledge of the Restoration period and continues to be a source of new insights for historians and literary scholars. During the seventeenth century, news-gathering, reading and gossiping were closely interrelated activities. Pepys was an expert sifter of news, a devoted bibliophile, and inveterate gossip, and as such his papers provide an extraordinarily rich resource for study of reading practices and the transmission of texts in the decades following the Restoration. To better understand the history of reading, publishing and book collecting in the period 1660-1700, we need to take advantage of the kind of detailed, contextual information that Pepys provides. Studying Pepys's reading behaviour encourages, indeed necessitates, an interdisciplinary approach, for Pepys did not confine himself to the novels and plays that are of interest to literary critics or to the newsbooks and satire primarily of interest to political historian: he read widely in variety of works, including scientific treatises, descriptions of the latest technologies, sermons, conduct books and ballads. My research project goes beyond Pepys's famous diary to consider the evidence of his library which survives at Magdalene College, Cambridge, his copious correspondence, and his unpublished and little known papers (from shopping lists to account books) now in the Bodleian Library. Other evidence comes from the papers of Pepys's many associates and from the documents of contemporaries such as the clergyman Giles More. Using these records, I examine how works from a range of major genres were used by Pepys and his contemporaries in the period 1660-1700: What factors commonly prompted the reading and acquisition of works? What were the priorities in interpreting particular types of text? What functions did the ownership and display of books serve for Pepys, his friends and colleagues? Samuel Pepys was in some ways an extraordinary reader, but his curiosity and his concern for documenting information mean that his papers tell us much about reading and news-gathering in a cross-section of Restoration society: the reading activity of nobles, merchants, gentlewomen and servants left their traces in the records created by or associated with Pepys. Indeed, as Pepys's career and his bibliophilia progressed, he built up international networks of contacts who exchanged news, gossip, books and ideas around Europe. Crucially, the papers of Pepys and his contacts offer details which allow us not only to track how social relationships influenced reading habits, but also to trace the relationships between oral, scribal and printed media. Samuel Pepys thus stands at the centre of this study, which aims to increase our understanding of the receipt and exchange of information at a time of momentous events in politics and also in the booktrade. For those with interests in the history of the book, Restoration political history, early modern intellectual history and the development of genres this will prove an intriguing and accessible work.