But these are matched today under the menace of the coronavirus. Pepys’s great diary lays bare the terrors, horrors and the abyss of ignorance which prevailed almost four centuries ago. Bubonic plague raged, killing thousands a week in London with a population of less than 400,000. This officer of the Crown was, of course, Samuel Pepys, and the year was 1665. One summer’s day long ago, a government bureaucrat recorded a resolution to set his worldly affairs in order, ‘the season growing so sickly, that it is much to be feared how a man can ’scape having a share in it – for which the good Lord God bless me, or be fitted to receive it’. In 1665 that life was lived under an ever-present shadow of death, and Pepys offers us a glimpse into how that affected London and Londoners alike. Unequalled for its frankness, high spirits and sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece and a marvellous portrait of seventeenth-century life. As well as recording public and historical events, Pepys paints a vivid picture of his personal life, from his socializing and amorous entanglements, to his theatre-going and his work at the Navy Board. For nearly ten years he kept a private diary in which he recorded life in Restoration London, commenting on politics, public events and private matters. In his lifetime, Pepys was a naval administrator and a friend and colleague of the powerful and learned.
The bustle of business gave way to a grim air of fear as nearly a quarter of Londoners were struck down. The plague that swept through London in 1665 brought the city to a grinding halt. This timely release of a year in the life of London’s greatest diarist comes with an introduction by bestselling author, Max Hastings.
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