Pepys, Samuel

Pepys, Samuel (1633-1703), writer,b. London.

Samuel Pepys wrote one of the most famous diaries ever discovered.

It covers the period 1660-69, and provides a day-to-day record of life in London during the reign of King Charles II.

The diary is in six volumes and it includes stories about music and the theater, descriptions of London in the Great Plague (1665), an account of the Great Fire in 1666, and details of his own life.

The diary was found in the library of a college in Cambridge. It was written in a mixture of shorthand, French, Spanish, Latin and Greek and it was not translated until 1882.

Pepys worked at the Admiralty which looks after the affairs of the Royal Navy. He began his career there as a clerk and became one of the most important officials.

He was for a time a Member of Parliament.

See The Diary of Samuel Pepys