An investigation into the art and history of diary writing as well as a guide to the great diaries and private chronicles of the famous, the infamous, and the anonymous

Samuel Pepys gives a unique first hand account of life during the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. Pepys stayed in London while many of the wealthy fled the city in the face of the plague. His careful observation and interest in the details of people's lives as well as the events of the time are unparalleled.

Samuel Pepys is popularly known as the founder of the modern navy, a member of the Royal Society and most of all, as a unique and frank diarist. Less well known is the fact that he was a serial sexual offender by modern standards; a voyeur, a groper and a rapist. Set against the London society of Charles II's restoration, and extensively using Pepys' own words, this book concerns his numerous extramarital affairs, often using his professional status and position of influence to advance the careers of his subordinates, in return for the sexual favors of their wives. With his own very frank descriptions, translated from the strange mix of languages and the seventeenth century shorthand he used to camouflage the content, the reader witnesses in often very graphic detail how Pepys set about achieving his lascivious objectives - on occasion resorting to physical force where persuasion or bribery failed. Whether she be wife, daughter, mother or humble maidservant, no woman was safe from his rapacious sexual appetite. This book shows the reader a little known, dark and sometimes very disturbing aspect of Samuel Pepys' character, one which even in his own day, he would not have wanted to be publicly aired.

Selections from Samuel Pepys' diary offers a vivid picture of seventeenth century British life, and are accompanied by background information concerning his life and times