Reader Mark Chambers has sent me this note on a new blogging project, which reminds me of an idea I had years ago, to republish, one day at a time, a newspaper from, say, 50 years ago.

On Jan 1 this year a new blog was set up which will be posting each day a new daily entry from Samuel Pepys’ Diary. The site is here.

I’m pretty sure you would have heard of Pepys, but just in case, he wrote what is widely regarded as the greatest personal journal in the English language. The years he covered – 1660 to 1669 – covered some of the great events of the 17th century: the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy, the Black Death of 1665, and the Great Fire of London in 1666. Over this time Pepys grew into a well respected civil servant in the English Naval Office. As well as being of historic interest, he was extremely honest in writing about himself – the reader gets a warts and all insight into Pepys’ personality.

This sounds fascinating. It would be great for someone to do this with Boswell’s journals as well.