Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 11: June/july/august 1661
The year is 1661. Charles II has been on the throne for barely a year, and London is thrumming with the restless energy of a kingdom remade. Into this intoxicating, dangerous world steps Samuel Pepys, a young clerk at the Navy Board with grand ambitions and an unforgivably honest pen. This volume captures three summer months of his extraordinary diary: the dinners with influential men, the tedious Admiralty meetings, the theatre trips that leave him rapt, the anxious calculations of his career and finances, and the small humiliations and triumphs of daily life in Restoration England. Pepys writes about himself with a startling frankness that feels almost modern, admitting his vanities, his lusts, his insecurities. He gossips mercilessly, complains vividly, and observes everything. The result is not merely a historical document but a living, breathing portrait of a city and a moment in transition. For anyone curious about how people actually lived four centuries ago, here is the real thing: intimate,有时 funny, sometimes excruciating, always vivid.
