Samuel Pepys achieved fame as a naval administrator, a friend and colleague of the powerful and learned, a figure of substance. But for nearly ten years he kept a diary which recorded, with unparalleled openness and sensitivity, exactly what it was like to be a young man in Restoration London. Within and beyond the narrative of his extraordinary career, Claire Tomalin explores Pepys’ inner life – his relations with women, his fears and ambitions, his political shifts, his agonies and his delights.
