Literature · 2
In which decade did a Cambridge student finally crack the shorthand code concealing Samuel Pepys's famous diary?
Answer
1820s
John Smith, a Cambridge student, deciphered Pepys's diary in the 1820s using Thomas Shelton's tachygraphy system. Ironically, a key to the shorthand was sitting on Pepys's own bookshelf, but Smith was unaware of it and decoded the text through painstaking analysis.
💡 Did you know?
Samuel Pepys encoded his diary in shorthand for 350 years until a Cambridge student finally deciphered it in the 1820s.
Other options people guess
- 1770s
- 1870s
- 1920s
Topics
- diary
- british-literature
- restoration
- 17th-century
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