BOOK REVIEW-The Curious World of Samuel Pepys & John Evelyn by Margaret Willes

Margaret Willes’ book provided my first introduction to the life of John Evelyn, weaving aspects of his life alongside that of his friend and (the now arguably more famous) Pepys. The title is a nod to the ‘insatiable curiosity’ that the author states they both shared.

Willes explains that the first book that Evelyn gave Pepys was an instruction manual for building up a library. She suggests that the lives of Evelyn and Pepys (and the libraries both men built) could be conceived as a cabinet of curiosities; her book is imagined in the same way. Divided into three parts; the outer decoration (their public lives) the inner decoration (their private lives) and the individual drawers and sections of the cabinet representing their various diverse interests. It’s a strong mental image but a literary structure that leads to some repetition between the first and final part. Perhaps not unlike life?  

Evelyn was older than Pepys and outlived him. Willes suggests the two men may have first met at the Royal Society (of which Pepys later became President – more due to his administrative abilities rather than renown as a scientist – although the description of his purchase and testing of a microscope (p119) is fascinating). The two men struck up correspondence and became friends while working to support injured and impoverished sailors and POWs during the Anglo-Dutch Wars and went on to work on designs for the Royal Naval Hospital in Greenwich.

Willes’ suggests the reason we know about either diary is a result of a sort of literary chancer (my phrase not hers!) in the form of William Upcott, who came across Evelyn’s papers (being used as fire-kindling and dress-making patterns by his descendants) and decided to take and publish them. This, she explains, acted as a catalyst for the publication of the much more carefully preserved and shorter but more difficult to decipher diary of Pepys.

Although written in English and not masked by shorthand, Evelyn’s writing is presented as harder to read than Pepys; densely constructed with elaborate flourishes (and a lot longer), although not on the level of tedium as some of the journals of the puritan divines of the period! Whereas Pepys came to be seen as a typical Englishman (a perspective explored in Kate Loveman’s recent (2025) book rather than here), Evelyn, (who was a staunch Royalist and travelled widely in Europe during the Commonwealth period) is presented by Willes as having his heart in France, particularly Paris, where he met his (English) wife and on which he based his proposals for rebuilding London after the Great Fire (submitted two days later than Wren’s). The first paper Evelyn presented to the Royal Society was on the different ways that the French make bread.

The comparison between the lives of the two men raises lots of ‘what if’ questions. Pepys (with the help of some influential family members at first) pragmatically – and not always successfully - negotiated the changing politics and constitutional arrangements of the time; had he, like Evelyn, had recourse to funds sufficient for a grand tour of Europe, would he have done so? Evelyn is presented as a control freak as a father and husband – writing a manual for his young wife with a telling passage (p82) that seems to draw on the preface to the ‘Office of Man and Wife’ written by Cranmer, equating the family unit with a nation state. Had he not rejected the offer of education at Eton and had the chance to gain high public office, perhaps his desire for power and control would not have found the same expression in his family life?

Pepys’ pragmatism and Evelyn’s propriety find expression in commentary on their religious lives. Evelyn’s staunch Anglicanism compared to Pepys’ attendance at church but (p221) his decision to abstain from receiving Holy Communion.

The two men shared many interests - but differed in their specialisms. The section on flora and fauna (‘Hortulan Affairs’) is dominated by Evelyn (Pepys’ sole attempt at gardening, Willes’ quips, was burying his parmesan to avoid the Great Fire!) Evelyn’s first book; ‘Sylva,’ or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty's Dominions (1662) not only looked at the economics of timber production but analysed the aesthetics of trees and helped to fashion a new era in garden design, towards more naturalistic, landscape-led approaches – and, through Willes’ book, made me appreciate the trees around me more carefully. The connections to the exotic specimens in the Lambeth Palace garden developed by Henry Compton were also interesting to read. Perhaps the new Archbishop will give us a private tour once she has settled in?! Evelyn defined a garden as “a place of all terrestrial enjoyments the most resembling Heaven, and the best representation of our lost felicities.” (p160). His booklet ‘Fumifugium’ (1661) is considered one of the earliest texts on air pollution and he recommends building parks and gardens (publicly accessible) in each city, to allow fragrant flowers to counter the ‘hellish clouds’ of coal.

With Evelyn in the garden, Pepys dominates the section on music. An accomplished musician himself, we learn of his flageolet performance up on a hot roof one in Seething Lane one June evening (p131) and how his later home in York Buildings became the location for some of the first public concerts in England.

Guy de la Bédoyère has edited a book (‘Particular Friends’) setting out correspondence between Evelyn and Pepys and I hope to read that in due course to find out more about the friendship between the two men. As an introduction to Evelyn and his connection to Pepys, I’m glad to have come across Willes’ excellent book — and I commend it to you.

 

It is a great privilege to have been appointed as Rector of St Olave Hart Street; what Pepys described as “our own church” and where Samuel and Elizabeth Pepys are buried. Do come and visit and explore the long history of this fascinating church and attend our services and events throughout the year.