This work presents some of the most exciting incidents from the diary of Samuel Pepys concerning his life and the manners of his time. Pepys was an English diarist and naval administrator. He acted as administrator of the navy of England and a Member of Parliament. Pepys is most famous for keeping a diary for a decade when he was young. Since one cannot separate the life of Pepys from the period he lived in, this work acts as a history of 16th century England.

An intimate portrait of two pivotal Restoration figures during one of the most dramatic periods of English history Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn are two of the most celebrated English diarists. They were also extraordinary men and close friends. This first full portrait of that friendship transforms our understanding of their times. Pepys was earthy and shrewd, while Evelyn was a genteel aesthete, but both were drawn to intellectual pursuits. Brought together by their work to alleviate the plight of sailors caught up in the Dutch wars, they shared an inexhaustible curiosity for life and for the exotic. Willes explores their mutual interests—diary-keeping, science, travel, and a love of books—and their divergent enthusiasms, Pepys for theater and music, Evelyn for horticulture and garden design. Through the richly documented lives of two remarkable men, Willes revisits the history of London and of England in an age of regicide, revolution, fire, and plague to reveal it also as a time of enthralling possibility.

Reproduction of the original: Samuel Pepps and the World he lived in by Henry B. Wheatley

"This study uses [Pepys's] surviving papers to examine reading practices, collecting, and the exchange of information in the late 17th century"--Back cover.