The Diary of Samuel Pepys

For nearly ten years in the 1660s, a rising naval administrator named Samuel Pepys wrote down everything, and he never meant for anyone to read it. Encoded in shorthand, his diary records London's most dramatic decade from the inside: the restoration of King Charles II, the plague year that emptied the streets, and the Great Fire that Pepys watched consume the city while people flung their belongings into boats on the Thames. Between the catastrophes come the small, timeless things: office politics, marital spats, too much wine, resolutions broken by Friday.

What makes the diary irresistible is Pepys himself, vain, curious, ambitious, guilty, and disarmingly honest about all of it. He confesses what most memoirists conceal, then goes back to work the next morning. Heard aloud, it feels less like a historical document and more like the world's longest, most candid voice memo from three and a half centuries ago. Dip in anywhere; the voice is always alive.

At roughly 1,133,500 words, The Diary of Samuel Pepys runs about 126 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “The Diary of Samuel Pepys” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.