Description
Pepys: A Biography by Richard Ollard examines the life and character of Samuel Pepys, exploring both his public achievements and private contradictions within the turbulent world of 17th-century England. Pepys rose from modest beginnings to become President of the Royal Society and a highly effective naval administrator, while cultivating friendships with figures such as Christopher Wren, John Evelyn, John Dryden and Isaac Newton. Ollard places Pepys firmly within the context of the English Civil War, the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell, the Restoration of Charles II, the Dutch wars, the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London, the Popish Plot—during which Pepys was imprisoned in the Tower of London—and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The biography explores the tensions between Pepys the pleasure-seeker and moralist, the disciplined civil servant and the passionate lover of music and the arts.
Drawing on historical records and Pepys’s own diaries, this account offers readers of British history and literary biography a balanced and contextual portrait of a complex and influential figure.
