Publisher's Synopsis
In effect, this book will be a 17th-century version of doing 'the knowledge' for a London cab-driver today. As a man who knew his way around the city's streets better than many, it will also present Pepys as a 17th-century version of the Parisian flaneur. It is a fascinating exploration of his relationship with London, almost as if the city were as much a character in his life as his family, or patrons, or friends (as indeed it was), and draw as many parallels as it can between Pepys' experience of living in the 17th-century city and those of Londoners living in and walking the streets of the city today. Lastly, it shows Pepys's London as vividly alive for the reader or walker of today as possible - reconstructing the sensory and emotional experience of 17th-century London by bringing geography, biography and history into one.
