Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) began his celebrated diary on 1st January 1660 immediately prior to the Restoration of Charles II to the throne and the subsequent loosening of the rigid moral and social code enforced during the Puritan Commonwealth. As variously Clerk to the Council, a Member of Parliament, a prisoner in the Tower of London, twice Secretary to the Admiralty and President of the Royal Society, Pepys was in a unique position to observe and record in detail a fascinating ten-year period of English history which included not only the Restoration, but the Great Plague of 1665 and the Fire of London the following year.

However it was not only the affairs of State which took up the great diarist's interest, for he was a regular attendant at the King's Theatre, was a hearty eater and drinker and delighted in recording his fondness for women, especially his own and his friends' young servant girls.