Samuel Pepys, (23 February 1633 - 26 May 1703) was a leading 17th century English civil servant, latterly famous for his diary. The diary is a fascinating combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.

(His surname is pronounced "Peeps", although some modern relatives with the same name pronounce it "Pep-iss".)


He liked wine and plays, and the company of other people. He also spent a great deal of time evaluating his fortune and his place in the world. He was always curious and often acted on that curiosity, as he acted upon almost all his impulses.

He was passionately interested in music and he both composed, and sang & played for pleasure. He taught his wife to sing, and paid for dancing lessons for her (although these stopped when he became jealous of the dancing master).

He had a rather Puritan outlook on life, and periodically he would resolve to devote more time to hard work instead of leisure. For example, this entry on New Year's Eve, 1661, "I have newly taken a solemn oath about abstaining from plays and wine..." The following months reveal his lapses to the reader as by 17 February "And here I drank wine upon necessity, being ill for the want of it."


from wikipedia.org