Pepys Diary

Written from 1660 to 1669 and first printed in the nineteenth century, this diary records Samuel Pepys's daily life as a rising Navy Office clerk in Restoration London. He notes work on the fleet, the coronation of Charles II, the plague year, the Great Fire, parliamentary business, music, books, food, and his marriage to Elizabeth. Entries mix public events with private accounts of money, jealousy, and pleasure. He writes in a private cipher and stops when his eyesight fails. The book is a contemporary journal, not a shaped memoir and not a history of the Restoration written after the fact.

With 12 leaves of colour and monochrome prints reproducing contemporary paintings, prints and documents in each volume. Full dark blue buckram decorated in gold, endleaves printed in blue. Three-volume slipcase printed in colour.