![Portrait of Pepys, after John Hayls. The Diary for 17 March 1666 reads: ‘This day I begin to sit [for Hayls], and he will make me, I think, a very fine picture.... I sit to have it full of shadows, and do almost break my neck looking over my shoulder to make the posture for him to work by.’](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/pepys1.jpg?w=620&h=413&crop=1)
We all know about Samuel Pepys witnessing the Great Fire in his Diaries, but how many have read the definitive Latham and Matthews nine-volume edition, published between 1970 and 1983, complete with Pepys’s coded sections and his inconsistent and archaic spellings? Certainly the only person in the world to have read it aloud in its unexpurgated entirety is Leighton Pugh, on this three-volume 116-hour Naxos recording released between January and May this year.
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The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1660–1669. Read unabridged by Leighton Pugh (Naxos Audio Books). Volume I: 1660–1663: 34 CDs, 42¾ hrs, £100; Volume II: 1664–1666: 29 CDs, 37½ hrs, ￡£85; Volume III: 1667–1669 : 29 CDs, 36 hrs,￡£85. Available from naxosdirect.co.uk and amazon.co.uk and downloads fromnaxosaudiobooks.com and audible.co.uk.
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