‘The index to the definitive Pepys‘

Robert Latham, then Pepys Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge, spoke to the Society of Indexers in October 1979 on his compilation of the index to the ninevolume edition of The diary of Samuel Pepys edited by himself and William Matthews (see The Indexer 12 (1) April 1980, 34-5). In 1983 the index was published as Vol. XI (Bell and Hyman, £19.50 per vol.), to the acclaim of all reviewers (see The Indexer 13 (4) Oct. 1983, 272-3, 275). In February 1984 Mr Latham gave the Dr Aldred Memorial Lecture to the Royal Society of Arts, on 'Pepys and his editors'; the full text appears in Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, May 1984, 390-400. We reproduce here the section concerning the compilation of the index, after its triumphant publication, by kind permission of the editor of JRSA (the title we give it is our own).