Comment on style / language

Pepys narrates his memoirs in an honest reporting style noted by critics as unlike any other diary in history. Pepys never intended his memoirs for publication, and as a result recorded both common and historic daily events with a reporter's style of description. For example, on October 13, 1660, Pepys describes the historic event of the execution of oneof Charles I's enemies as follows: "I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-general Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered." In the same entry, Pepys relates the events of his comparatively ordinary afternoon, "setting up shelves in my study."