Published to co-incide with the pbk of Claire Tomalin’s Whitbread Prize-winning biography

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 theatre-going & music-making. Unequalled for its frankness, high spirits & sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece & a marvellous portrait of 17th-century life.