How 'tantalising' end to diary of Samuel Pepys inspired novels that make him a detective
It was a long-standing interest in history that brought Jack Jewers to the diaries of Samuel Pepys. Reading the entries two years ago, he became fascinated by the insight that they gave into life in London in the 17th century.
But he struggled to accept their sudden end in 1669, when Pepys stopped documenting his daily life after nearly a decade.
"The diaries are kind of like catnip for someone who loves history,” says Jack, an author and filmmaker. “He wrote well over a million words of his daily life in extraordinary detail, between 1660 and 1669.
"He was present at some of the biggest events in history like the Great Fire of London and the return of the King after the Civil War and and the Great Plague of 1665 but also he wrote about these tiny moments of his everyday life...It’s a very human version of history.
“In the summer of 1669, the diary just stops and I was surprised to discover he lived for over 30 years after that. We know these scraps about his life that suggest his adventures were just getting started…but he didn’t write any of it down and I found that so tantalising.”
Jack, who lives in Surrey, used the blank as inspiration, imagining Pepys to have written diaries in secret in the years that followed whilst carrying out detective work.
His debut novel The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys was published in 2022 and now Jack has written a second book, due to be released September 3 to mark the 360th anniversary of The Great Fire of London in 1666 – one of the events that Pepys wrote about in his famous diary.
Seething Lane casts the diarist in the role of sleuth and sends him on the trail of the shocking murder of a libertine aristocrat.
“My approach to historical fiction is to make people feel like they’re there by thinking about how a place sounded, the smells, the sights but through someone actually just living their life,” explains Jack, who made his first film at the age of six and his first professional one 14 years later.
Like his novels, many have been on the topic of history. “I made films all through my teens, I studied film at university and I made my first professional film when I was 20,” Jack says. “I didn’t intend to keep coming back to history but I have.”
Next month, he’ll be visiting Yorkshire for two ‘in conversation’ events to discuss Seething Lane, which also brings to life the 17th century world of restoration theatre.
Jack’s parents were actors who met at the Royal Shakespeare Company and he spent much of his childhood backstage in theatres.
"A lot of the story of Seething Lane takes place at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane and I did get to use some of my experiences of that theatre world and draw on real life and real people for the characters,” he says.
- Jack Jewers will be discussing Seething Lane at Wave of Nostalgia bookshop in Haworth on September 9 and Pickering Book Tree on September 10.
For tickets, visit waveofnostalgia.co.uk and www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk or www.jackjewers.com/events