This attractively produced volume will be of considerable interest and value to students of naval history, though its authorship and political implications lend it wider appeal.

International Journal of Maritime History - March 2011

Although he died more than three hundred years ago, Samuel Pepys is still by far the world's best-known naval administrator. For that matter, he is almost certainly also the world's best known bureaucrat and political "spin doctor".

This fascinating little book was written after he lost his job in a massive change of government in 1688. It is unbelievably prescient. Any current senior defence bureaucrat or admiral who not studied it should be dismissed immediately.

No matter what your nationality, most things naval remain the same. Pepys was a cynical and brilliant writer. Dr Davies has done an excellent job of converting his wisdom to current idiom. A masterpiece!

Ausmarine - February 2011

The diary of Samuel Pepys, recounting the intimate details of his scandalous private life, is recognized as epitomizing
seventeenth century life in London. What is much less well known is that his famous diary was not published until over a century after his death. Memoires was the only book Pepys published in his lifetime. With a new introduction by J D Davies, a leading historian of the Restoration Navy, this pocket-sized, facsimile version of the original book provides an inventory of ships and an overview of the Royal Navy at the time. More significantly, it is also Pepys's personal vindication of his achievements while at the centre of naval administration in the ten years leading up to his dismissal in 1688 when William and Mary came to the throne. In the manner of today's leading politicians and disgruntled civil servants, who after leaving high office in Whitehall rush to publish their memoirs, Pepys's version of events is intentionally the one he wanted remembered, rather than it being a true record of what actually took place. Pepys was a 'political animal', a 'master of spin', long before such terms were in everyday use. Despite his many faults, when read together with Dr Davies's illuminating essay, and for those who prefer to use their own selective scalpel, rather than relying on someone else's swashbuckling cutlass, to separate fact from fiction in naval history, this is an intriguing and ingenious memoir.
Recommended reading for all serious students of the period.

Pennant, November 2010