Samuel Pepys

Born on February 23, 1633, in Salisbury Court, London, the son of a tailor, Samuel Pepys rose through patronage and relentless administrative talent to become the most powerful naval bureaucrat in England. He was educated at St Paul's School and Magdalene College, Cambridge, and in 1655 married the fifteen-year-old Elisabeth de St Michel, a union that would prove turbulent and deeply affectionate in equal measure. On January 1, 1660, he began keeping a diary in Thomas Shelton's shorthand system, a record he would maintain almost daily for nine years, producing the most vivid eyewitness account of Restoration England ever written. He recorded the coronation of Charles II, the ravages of the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London in 1666 with unmatched immediacy, burying his wine and Parmesan cheese in the garden as flames approached. As Clerk of the Acts and later Chief Secretary to the Admiralty, he professionalised the Royal Navy and rooted out corruption, though he was himself twice imprisoned in the Tower of London on suspicion of treachery. His diary was also ruthlessly honest about his own failings, his infidelities, his vanity, his love of theatre and music. He stopped writing on May 31, 1669, fearing he was going blind, though his eyesight later recovered. He died on May 26, 1703, in Clapham, and the diary remained unread for over a century until its decipherment in 1825.

In March 1658, before anaesthesia existed, a surgeon cut a stone from Pepys's bladder while he lay held down and fully awake. He survived, kept the stone in a case to show visitors, and threw a feast on the anniversary every year afterward to celebrate simply being alive.