![]() ![]() In Pepys, Tomalin abandons strict chronology for a thematic treatment in part two, covering the years of the diary, 1660-1669, the years she has unparalleled access to Pepys’s life. ![]() With these tastes of the person her subject is to become, Tomalin returns to a more conventional chronological account in both cases. The 17th century comes alive in the pages of Pepys’ diary – and thus in the biography – in a way it rarely can. For Pepys, it is a blazing argument with his wife, revealing him in all his pettiness, candour, and observational genius. For Hardy, it is the death of his wife, the loss which turns him into a great poet. As in Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man, she begins with the subject in action, a prologue which tells of a critical incident – in the case of Hardy, a moment of conversion in the case of Pepys, a representative moment.I offer some notes on her biographical method. I’m two-thirds through her 2002 book on the 17th century diarist and naval administrator, Samuel Pepys. Claire Tomalin is a master literary biographer who makes the genre more compelling and interesting than any other writer I know. ![]()
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