John Evelyn

John Evelyn, FRS (31 October 1620 – 27 February 1706) was an English writer, gardener and diarist.

Evelyn's diaries, or memoirs, are largely contemporaneous with those of his rival diarist, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time (the deaths of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell, the last Great Plague of London, and the Great Fire of London in 1666). Over the years, Evelyn's Diary has been overshadowed by Pepys's chronicles of 17th-century life.