Samuel Pepys was born in 1633 in London, England. Pepys was number five out of eleven children, though several of his siblings died quite young. He was well educated, attending the University of Cambridge. He was a Member of Parliament as well as a Naval Administrator. He was a famous diarist, and wrote about a lot of interesting events and thoughts about things. I have read his diary and found it to be pretty intriguing. This book really gets into details about his life and his diary, and it was packed with information. I hate to say that I got a little bit bored in places, but that may be because I had read his diary previously.

A couple of interesting facts that I noted about him were that he attended the execution of King Charles I in 1649, and that he had several notable family members. (His father's cousin was Sir Edward Montagu, Earl of Sandwich. His great uncle Talbot Pepys was a Member of Parliament and Recorder.) He also suffered from bladder stones, which I cannot even imagine how painful that must have been. Painful enough that he had surgery back in a time when that wasn't done nearly as sterile and with pain management. I was horrified learning about that.