The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys ( PEEPS; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English writer and Tory politician. He served as an official in the Navy Board and Member of Parliament, but is now most renowned for the diary he kept for almost a decade. It is considered one of the most notable diaries ever written, particularly for its detailed personal accounts of his everyday life, the Great Plague of London and the Fire of London. For historians it is an important primary source of the Stuart Restoration and of upper-middle class London life at the time. Son of a tailor, Pepys was educated at St Paul's School and attended Magdalene College, Cambridge. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree, he entered the service of his cousin Sir Edward Montagu, and later found work as a teller in the Exchequer under George Downing. Pepys began to keep a detailed private diary in 1660. The diary provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of major events, such as the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Great Plague of London, and the Great Fire of London. He recorded his daily life until 1669 when concerns over fading eyesight forced him to abandon the routine. In 1660, courtesy of Montagu,…