Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2002)

On a December day in 1659, Samuel Pepys, a low-level civil servant in Restoration England, purchased a plain 282-page notebook in which he planned to keep a journal. ''It was an unpromising moment to embark on a record of his daily activities,'' wryly observes Claire Tomalin in her brilliant new biography, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, of the man whose diaries are now regarded as perhaps the most famous in English letters. Tracing his career -- from humble bureaucrat to an influential architect of the modern Royal Navy -- Tomalin presents a fascinating portrait of an individual equal parts yuppie (shallow and materialistic), company man (a capable administrator), and skirt-chasing scamp. Yet Tomalin never falters in her appreciation of this unpretentious genius. It is, after all, difficult to condemn a man who watches the royal pooch ''s--- in the boat, which made us all laugh and me think that a King and all that belong to him are but just as others are.''