Mynors Bright (1818–1883) was an English academic, president of Magdalene College, Cambridge, from 1853 to 1873. He was the decipherer of the diary of Samuel Pepys.

Life

Mynors Bright was the son of the physician John Bright, and of Eliza his wife. He was educated at

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

, and entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, on 3 July 1835. He was a senior optime in mathematics, and took a second-class in classics. He proceeded B.A. in 1840, and M.A. in 1843. He became foundation-fellow, tutor, and eventually president of Magdalene, and was chosen proctor in 1853. The Pepys Library being at Magdalene, Bright resolved to re-decipher the whole of Pepys' 'Diary,' and to this end he learnt the cipher from Thomas Shelton's ''Tachygraphy''. In 1873 he retired from Magdalene, and left Cambridge for London. His ''Pepys'' was printed between 1875 and 1879, and was published simultaneously in quarto and octavo, six volumes each. The edition included engravings of

William Faithorne William Faithorne, often "the Elder" (161613 May 1691), was an English painter and engraver. Life Faithorne was born in London and was apprenticed to William Peake. On the outbreak of the Civil War Faithorne accompanied his master into the ...

's ''Map of London'', 1658, and

John Evelyn John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's diary, or m ...

's ''Posture of the Dutch Fleet'', 1667. It corrected numerous errors occurring in the original decipherment, and inserted many passages hitherto suppressed but still left only about 80% of the diary in print. A complete reissue of Bright's transcript was edited by Henry Benjamin Wheatley in ten volumes in 1893–1899. Bright became paralysed about 1880, and died on 23 February 1883, aged 65. He never married, and bequeathed part of his interest in his ''Pepys'' to Magdalene College. His portrait was painted by F. Dickenson, and presented by his friends to his college.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bright, Mynors 1818 births 1883 deaths Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge 19th-century English writers