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I suppose that must be the case. I'm trying to Google up something definitive; but so far I've found many more entries that take for granted that the diary was done in code, and then jump to the question of the ethics of publishing these diaries. But if it's just ordinary shorthand, wouldn't that cut down this argument?
How about this:
The Diary was written not in a private code of Pepys' own contriving, but in Shelton's system of shorthand; one of the several then in vogue. The signs and symbols he used were often difficult to interpret, and in recording the more intimate details of some of his adventures Pepys employed a strange jargon of French, Latin, Greek and Spanish, and, in addition, sometimes inserted dummy letters so as to make the text still more difficult to decipher. The pages were handed to John Smith, an undergraduate of St. John's College, whose labours were completed after working for nearly three years -- usually for 12 to 14 hours a day.
But you must be right, it must have been a book about the Shelton system... though that would still leave quite a job, sounds like. And it does seem that there was some effort of Pepys' part to protect against prying eyes? |
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