The Joys of Excess

Author(s): Samuel Pepys

Food Writing

As well as being the most celebrated diarist of all time, Samuel Pepys was also a hearty drinker, eater and connoisseur of epicurean delights, who indulged in every pleasure seventeenth-century London had to offer. Whether he is feasting on barrels of oysters, braces of carps, larks' tongues and copious amounts of wine, merrymaking in taverns until the early hours, attending formal dinners with lords and ladies or entertaining guests at home with his young wife, these irresistible selections from Pepys' diaries provide a frank, high-spirited and vivid picture of the joys of over-indulgence - and the side-effects afterwards.


Product Information

A visceral, earthy writer - Hermione Lee Vigorous, precise, enchanting ... the most ordinary and the most extraordinary writer you will ever meet - Claire Tomalin

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was a naval administrator, Member of Parliament and best remembered as a diarist. Kept between 1660-1669 and written in Shelton's shorthand, Pepys' diary recorded major historical events, like The Plague and The Great Fire of London alongside his more personal concerns and activities, including politics, his work in public life and rows with his wife, Elizabeth. Throughout are his fulsome thoughts on food, including his first encounters with drinking chocolate.

General Fields

  • : 9780241951125
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : 0.076
  • : April 2011
  • : 181mm X 111mm X 7mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : May 2011
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Samuel Pepys
  • : Paperback
  • : 1
  • : 394.1094209032
  • : 96