Samuel Pepys: 56 books

The Celebrated work here presented to the public under peculiar advantages may require a few introductory remarks.

As well as being the most celebrated diarist of all time, Samuel Pepys was also a hearty drinker, eater and connoisseur of epicurean delights, who indulged in every pleasure seventeenth-century London had to offer. Whether he is feasting on barrels of oysters, braces of carps, larks' tongues...

On 30 April 1665, the diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the first rumours that the bubonic plague was spreading through London: 'Great fears of the sickness here in the City - God preserve us all!' Thought to have come by ship from Amsterdam, which had been ravaged by the disease for two years, the Plague...