3 volume Pepys set

Does anyone own the 3 volume Pepys set? I've seen the Pepys LE and it is beautiful, but I can't see myself being able to afford it/being able to justify spending so much to get it. I would like a Pepys set though and I've seen some info on the 3 volume set but not much. While obviously it cannot compete with the LE, is it a nice set?

Leo, although I cannot comment on the 3 volume FS Pepys set I do have the FS LE 10 vol. version which I heartedly recommend. It is beautiful and a pleasure to read. The Matthews and Latham transcription is landmark and I would personally not settle with less. If you keep your eyes open you can probably get it for around ca. £400 on abe or ebay or you could get the original Matthews and Latham hardback books on abe.

It's nice. Well bound and with good supplemental material. (You can buy mine now I have the LE!)

I think the 3-volume set is an abridgement. There's a 3-volume Pepys listed as item 854 in Folio 60, and the description says that it's essentially a reissue of The Shorter Pepys (item 559.5) which was issued in 1985.

No think about it - it is an abridgement.

My Folio site tells me that Samuel Pepys is out of print...so maybe you have to troll the internet.

Thanks for all the replies. I know the LE is much nicer, but it's not the kind of set I'd be willing to pay hundreds of dollars for. I generally don't like abridgements, but was wondering if people who have this and read it found it a good set?

>8 leo6:

Yes, it is a good set--perhaps even too much for a casual reader--but a very good selection from the complete diary. I bought mine some years before the I bought the Complete FS edition, and had already read, as a graduate student, the "Complete Pepys" published by the Heritage Press in the 40s. From my memory, there wasn't much that was critical (for the general reader) omitted in the 3 volume FS edition, and a few tidbits, mostly of a licentious nature, included that weren't in the older version (those parts tended to be more memorable than passages of a purely historic nature).

I just picked up the Heritage Press 2-volume Shorter Pepys, and can recommend it as an affordable alternative. Like you, leo6, I would love the Folio LE Pepys, but it's simply out of my price range. The Shorter Pepys covers his rise to prominence, his eyewitness account of the Great Fire, his affairs, his amusing review of his accounts, his splurges on books and nights of theater, his troubled relations with his wife - in short, a full flavor of his life with his honesty, charm and moments of rascality. Obviously, the full set would be wonderful, but my son's college tuition bill is coming due.

Very pleased to have just picked up a pristine copy of this 3 Volume abridgement for AUD$100 delivered.

>1 leo6:
See https://www.librarything.com/topic/279195

> 12

Thanks. It looks like the 1996 Volumes are next best after the Limited Edition, and quite the bargain at $100 in today's money.