Pepys and his Contemporaries

Samuel Pepys’s Diary stands with Shakespeare and the King James Bible as an indisputable treasure of English literature. As a picture of England, and especially of London, in the age of King Charles II, of Wren and Newton and Nell Gwyn, of the Plague and the Great Fire, it is a rare and honest report that charts the key events of the day. In this book, Richard Ollard introduces the man himself, his friends and acquaintances – including Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, Charles II and John Evelyn – who Pepys wrote about with such humour and abandon. Illustrated with painted portraits, busts, engravings, and an extract from the Diary in Pepys’s original shorthand, this is a highly visual book that charts those men and women who surrounded Pepys.