The diary

The 1660s represent a turning point in English history, and for the main events — the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Great Plague and the Fire of London — Pepys provides a definitive eyewitness account. As well as recording public and historical events, Pepys paints a vivid picture of his personal life, from his socializing and amorous entanglements, to his theater-going and his work at the Navy Board. Unequaled for its frankness, high spirits and sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece and a marvelous portrait of seventeenth-century life.