Name: St Olave Lecture - The Strange History of Samuel Pepys’s Diary
Start: 2026-06-02T18:00:00+01:00
End: 2026-06-02T19:15:00+01:00
Location: St Olave's Church, Hart Street

$St Olave Lecture - The Strange History of Samuel Pepys\u2019s Diary$

Professor Kate Loveman explores how Samuel Pepys’s Diary has been received through the ages, since its first publication 200 years ago.
About this Event

Compline by Candlelight at St Olave Hart Street (5.30pm-5.50pm) - free to attend - followed by St Olave Lecture (6.00pm-7.15pm) : The Strange History of Samuel Pepys’s Diary by Professor Kate Lovweman. Tickets £5 which includes a glass of wine.
Please join us in what Samuel Pepys called his "own church" for Compline by Candlelight followed by our next St Olave Lecture. Professor Kate Loveman joins us to talk about her award winning book exploring how Samuel Pepys’s Diary has been received through the ages, since its first publication 200 years ago.
"During the 1660s, Samuel Pepys kept a secret diary full of intimate details and political scandal. Had the contents been revealed, they could have destroyed his marriage, ended his career, and seen him arrested. This engaging book explores the creation of the most famous journal in the English language, how it came to be published in 1825, and the many remarkable roles it has played in British culture since then. Kate Loveman – one of the few people who can read Pepys's shorthand – unlocks the riddles of the diary, investigating why he chose to preserve such private matters for later generations. She also casts fresh light on the women and sexual relationships in Pepys's life and on Black Britons living in or near his household. Exploring the many inventive uses to which the diary has been put, Loveman shows how Pepys's history became part of the history of the nation."