Samuel Pepys' Penny Merriments Author:Roger Thompson (Editor) In Samuel Pepys' library when he died was a collection of 115 tiny chapbooks which he had labelled "Penny Marriment." Since such chapbooks were shoddily produced and sold on street corners, few have survived. This unique collection (mostly dating from the 1680s), now housed in Magdalene College, Cambridge, and presented here in 80 extracts, give... more »s a rare opportunity to savour an extraordinarily vivid, lively and amusing slice of contemporary life.
There are "histories" -- such as that of Henry VIII on a drinking spree with a "Cobler", quaffing "tubs of nappy ale", accounts of Robin Hood, James Hind, the notorious highwayman, Dr. Faustus, and rogues, and witches like Mother Shipton; there are rules for palmistry and fortune-telling by moles; advice on courtship and oneupmanship in marriage; warnings on the perils of drink, avarice and freedom for women.
Much ridicule is made of randy widows, cuckolded husbands, Puritans and Welsh immigrants in stories that are bawdy, slapstick and full of innuendo. There are crossings of proverbs, riddles and "sackfuls of news". In all it is an enthralling book in which we learn much of the aspirations, wet, prejudices and day-to-day lives of ordinary people in the 17th century.