Summary: | "Samuel Pepys' FRS, MP, JP, (pron.: /pi?ps/;[1] 23 February 1633 ? 26 May 1703) was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and subsequently King James II. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy.[2] The detailed private diary Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century, and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London."--Wikipedia. "John Evelyn (31 October 1620 ? 27 February 1706) was an English writer, gardener and diarist. Evelyn's diaries or Memoirs are largely contemporaneous with those of the other noted diarist of the time, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time (he witnessed the deaths of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell, the last Great Plague of London, and the Great Fire of London in 1666). Over the years, Evelyn?s Diary has been over-shadowed by Pepys's chronicles of 17th-century life. Evelyn and Pepys corresponded frequently and much of this correspondence has been preserved."--Wikipedia.
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