Samuel Pepys was a great collector of books, news, and gossip. This study uses his surviving papers to examine reading practices, collecting, and the exchange of information in the late seventeenth century. Offering the first extensive history of reading during the Restoration, it traces developments in the book trade and news transmission at a time when England was the scene of dramatic political and religious upheavals. The investigation goes beyond Pepys's famous diary of the 1660s, employing a variety of sources to explore the role that reading played in Pepys's life and in the lives of his contemporaries. It begins by examining what it meant to be a reader in Restoration London: the skills, the people, and the places involved. Pepys's wide-ranging interests serve as starting points for considering news exchange and the reception of major literary genres in the Restoration. Particular attention is given to conduct books, histories, religious works, and recreational reading (romances, drama, and novels). The appeal that these works held for readers was not always what we might expect -or, indeed, what the authors and publishers had expected. Additional chapters explore the social interactions surrounding information gathering: the ways people acquired oral and written news in London; the experience of book-buying; and the acquisition of manuscript and print through social networks. Analysed alongside other records, Pepys's papers provide unrivalled insights into literary and cultural developments in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Prizes

Winner of Commendation for SHARP DeLong Book History Book Prize 2016.

Dr Loveman's research has been wide-ranging, and the multifarious details which she has culled from her reading are beautifully integrated into her thematic explorations. * Paul Hammond, The Seventeenth Century. *
Loveman's work has not only set the standard for all future scholarship on anything related to Pepys and books; it also models what ought to become a key approach to the history of reading more generally. Few archives are as rich as those surrounding Pepys, but the kinds of questions that Loveman poses, and the ways in which they can help us think through the perennial problem of exemplarity (or the lack thereof), point toward an exciting future for the field. It's a remarkable book, one well worth engaging with, whether or not you have any specific interest in Pepys. * Trude Dijkstra, Bibliographical Society of America *
Even avid readers of the Diary will not be prepared for the wealth of knowledge that emerges from this brilliant study. * George E. Haggerty, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *
This book, the result of many years of detailed work on Pepys and his books, should be welcomed as a substantial new addition to the literature on early modern private libraries, and not just as a study of its particular famous subject. * David Pearson, Library *
As a study of Restoration book culture, this will be essential reading for all bibliographers and book historians, but it is also a major contribution to Pepyss intellectual biography * Arnold Hunt, The Times Literary Supplement *
With enthusiasm and an incisive critical eye, Loveman analyses Pepys' varied attention to histories, plays, romances, novels, scientific books, biblical exegesis, and religious controversy across works in Spanish, French, Italian, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin ... astute [and] wry. * Peter J. Smith, Times Higher Education *
deeply researched and elegantly written ... The richly textured picture which emerges of how Pepys and his associates used their books cannot fail to inform and entertain anyone interested in the period. * Paul Hammond, The Seventeenth Century *
Loveman's work is a valuable contribution to the history of reading ... a well-written and clearly presented work ... This is a book that will be of great interest to anyone working on the history of reading. * Lena Liapi, Reviews in History *
Kate Loveman's Samuel Pepys and his Books abounded in memorable touches. * Christopher Howse, The Spectator *
Kate Loveman has provided one of the best case-studies available of how one reader used his books in the seventeenth century. * Austen Saunders, Cambridge Quarterly *

Kate Loveman is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature 1600-1789 at the University of Leicester. She is the author of Reading Fictions, 1660-1740: Deception in English Literary and Political Culture (2008). Her other publications include articles on book history, eighteenth-century novels, and the introduction of chocolate into England.