SAMUEL PEPYS--THREE VERSIONS

Samuel Pepys (23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English naval administrator  and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work, and his talent for administration to be the Chief Secretary to the  Admiralty under both King Charles II and subsequently King James II. 

His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalization of the Royal Navy. 

The detailed private diary Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War, and the Great Fire of London.  

--from Wikipedia

Dear Son,

Of course no true library is complete without the diaries of Samuel Pepys.  We have three versions for you!

The first is a 10-volume edition published by Dodd, Mead and Company (New York) in 1884. It even contains handwriting older than a century as the volume apparently was given as a Christmas present in 1885 by a Francis Peabody to an S.L. Peabody -- do appreciate the grain of that ink so redolently resulting from quill into some inkwell!!

The second version is a three-volume set published by G. Bell and Sons Ltd. (London) in 1952:

Thirdly, we have another 19th century edition, the eight-volume set published by George Bell and Sons (London and New York) in 1896.  Sadly, we are missing Volume 5 of this set, though we are looking for it:

What is also interesting about this third set is that its pages were formed by folding a single piece of paper twice, and some of the pages are still uncut -- like so:

Dear Son, As with the case of Samuel Pepys' diaries, Love can translate into several versions of the same thing.  I suppose it might be like loving another person -- you would be interested in this person  at age 18 or 80 and the points in between... May you also know Love like that in your life.

(The sets were acquired, respectively, for $175, $45 and $20, the latter no doubt affected by the missing volume.  By the way, we hope you never starve such that these price details never become relevant.)

Love,
Mom and Dad