Samuel Pepys was a familiar figure in the teeming city of London in the 1660s. By day, he conducted official business for His Majesty, King Charles II, picking his way among the human derelicts of St. Giles or waiting nervously in an elegant Whitehall anteroom. By night, he returned to his house in Seething Lane to record everything he had seen, felt, or imagined during the day. Using a special cryptogram meant for his eyes alone, Pepys crowded the pages of his diary with the exciting pageant of Restoration London and the intimate and sometimes sordid details of his own personal life.