Pepys Library
Samuel Pepys's own library, kept in his own bookcases at Magdalene College, currently closed for refurbishment.
Samuel Pepys collected books, manuscripts and prints throughout his life and left them to Magdalene College after his death in 1703. Pepys's heir was his nephew John Jackson, and on Jackson's death in 1723 the collection passed to the college intact, along with the bookcases Pepys had had made for it. The library is Grade I listed.
What it holds
The six bound manuscript volumes of Pepys's diary are the best-known items, but the shelves hold much more: around 3,000 volumes arranged by size as Pepys catalogued them, sixty medieval manuscripts, naval records compiled during his years at the Admiralty, his own copy of Newton's Principia, Sir Francis Drake's personal almanac and more than 1,800 printed ballads. Pepys's will forbids selling any book or adding new ones, so the collection stays as he left it.
The building
The library occupies a first-floor room in the Pepys Building, in the college's second court. The front is neo-classical in Ketton stone and the rear plainer brick. Painted on the facade are the words Bibliotheca Pepysiana 1724, marking the year the library arrived, along with Pepys's coat of arms and his motto, Mens cujusque is est quisque ("the mind's the man").
Visiting
Check before you go. The college states that the library is closed to visitors until 2027 for refurbishment, with no drop-in visits, tours or group visits during that period. Researchers need to contact the library in advance. Magdalene's own page is the place to look for reopening news, and the college itself lies along Magdalene Street.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
