The Diary of John Evelyn (edition 1995)

I read Evelyn's Diary after having read Pepys' and Boswell's. The first quarter of Evelyn's Diary about his voyages in France and Italy is really dull. This is a mere description of monuments, with only very few anecdotes. The diary written during the Restoration is much more interesting. I found the description of the damage caused by the Great Fire much better than what Pepys wrote himself. It's also funny to remark that, although Pepys and Evelyn knew each other quite well and frequented the same persons, they had different affinities with the royals. For instance, Evelyn almost never mention the Duke of York, while Pepys does a lot. This is perhaps due to the Duke being a Catholic while Evelyn was a Protestant not willing to compromise with Papists... ( )