The social life and customs of 17th Century England are vividly portrayed in these extracts from the diary of Samuel Pepys.

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 was an English diarist and naval administrator whose private diary that Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 (yet first published in the 19th century) is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. Besides personal revelations like court intrigue, gossip, living conditions, weather, diet, counterfeiting, public hangings, it also contains eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War, and the Great Fire of London.

The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events - the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Great Plague, the Fire of London - Pepys provides a definitive eyewitness account. Along with lively descriptions of his socializing, his amorous entanglements, his theater-going & music-making. Unequaled for its frankness, high spirits & sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece & a marvelous portrait of 17th-century life. Acclaimed by 'The Times' as "one of the glories of contemporary English publishing" and by Sir Arthur Bryant as "complete perfection", the Latham and Matthews edition remains the authoritative text and provides the source for this magnificent Folio Society publication.

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.