Many people throughout history have kept diaries of some kind, but I suggest that Samuel Pepys is, as the Encyclopædia Britannica puts it, “the greatest diarist of all.” Pepys’ 1.25 million words on the period 1660-1669 is not just a unique record of a formative and hugely interesting period in English life, but a ground-breaking… Continue reading
Posts Tagged → Hans Sloane
Hans Sloane – cataloguer of curiosities, maker of modernity
HANS SLOANE: COLLECTOR OF CURIOSITIES, MAKER OF MODERNITY Collecting the World – The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane James Delbourgo, London: Allen Lane, 2017, hb., 504pps., £25 Sloane Square, Sloane Street and Hans Place contain some of London’s most desirable addresses, but what do the occasionally resident Qatari princelings and Russian oligarchs, or retreating… Continue reading