Pepys's diary has long been recognized as one of the most remarkable in the English language, but it has been impossible until recent times to print it as he wrote it. Little academic work had been done on it and legal restrictions prevented the publication of its frankest passages in which Pepys describes his vigorous love life. In the pages reproduced here, the public events of the 1660s - the politics of the Restoration, the Dutch War, the Plague, the Great Fire of London - are interwoven with a diverting account of Pepys colourful private life.