The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn / Margaret Willes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Willes, Margaret, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pepys, Samuel, 1633-1703--Friends and associates.

Pepys, Samuel.

Evelyn, John, 1620-1706--Friends and associates.

Evelyn, John.

Cabinet officers--Great Britain--Biography.

Cabinet officers.

Diarists--Great Britain--Biography.

Diarists.

Great Britain--History--Stuarts, 1603-1714--Biography.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Court and courtiers--Biography.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xx, 282 pages, 48 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2017]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

An intimate portrait of two pivotal Restoration figures during one of the most dramatic periods of English history Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn are two of the most celebrated English diarists. They were also extraordinary men and close friends. This first full portrait of that friendship transforms our understanding of their times. Pepys was earthy and shrewd, while Evelyn was a genteel aesthete, but both were drawn to intellectual pursuits. Brought together by their work to alleviate the plight of sailors caught up in the Dutch wars, they shared an inexhaustible curiosity for life and for the exotic. Willes explores their mutual interests-diary-keeping, science, travel, and a love of books-and their divergent enthusiasms, Pepys for theater and music, Evelyn for horticulture and garden design. Through the richly documented lives of two remarkable men, Willes revisits the history of London and of England in an age of regicide, revolution, fire, and plague to reveal it also as a time of enthralling possibility.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Curiouser and Curiouser

Part I. 'The World Do Not Grow Old at All'

1. Two Worlds

2. The Decade of the Diaries

3. Prodigious Revolutions

Part II. 'Even Private Families are . . . the Best of Governments'

4. Private Lives

Part III. 'I Do Indulge Myself a Little the More in Pleasure'

5. Take Nobody's Word for It

6. Pleasure Above All Things

7. Hortulan Affairs

8. Exotic Extravagances

9. The Affection Which We Have to Books

Epilogue: And So to Bed

Appendix: The True Domestick Intelligence

Endnotes

Select Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-274) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 20. Jun 2019)

ISBN:

9780300231724

0300231725

OCLC:

1105858053