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The first published edition, newly
transcribed, and its shorthand decoded, of a major eye-witness account
of seventeenth-century England.
The Entring Book is the longest and richest diary of public life in
England during the era of the Glorious Revolution. Spanning the years
1677 to 1691, in nearly a million words, it records the downfall of the
House of Stuart. This is a chronicle not only of politics and religion,
but also of culture and society, gossip and rumour, manners and mores,
in a teeming metropolis risen phoenix-like from the Great Fire. Its
author, Roger Morrice, was a Puritan clergyman turned confidential
reporter for leading Whig politicians - well-connected, a barometer of
public opinion, and supremely well-informed. Written just twenty years
after Pepys's Diary, the Entring Book depicts a darker England, thrown
into a great crisis of ‘popery and arbitrary power’. |