The Dark Side of Samuel Pepys: Society's First Sex Offender

By Geoffrey Pimm

Samuel Pepys is popularly known as the founder of the modern navy, a member of the Royal Society and most of all, as a unique and frank diarist. Less well known is the fact that he was a serial sexual offender by modern standards; a voyeur, a groper and a rapist.

Set against the London society of Charles II’s restoration, and extensively using Pepys’ own words, this book concerns his numerous extramarital affairs, often using his professional status and position of influence to advance the careers of his subordinates, in return for the sexual favors of their wives.

With his own very frank descriptions, translated from the strange mix of languages and the seventeenth century shorthand he used to camouflage the content, the reader witnesses in often very graphic detail how Pepys set about achieving his lascivious objectives – on occasion resorting to physical force where persuasion or bribery failed. Whether she be wife, daughter, mother or humble maidservant, no woman was safe from his rapacious sexual appetite.

This book shows the reader a little known, dark and sometimes very disturbing aspect of Samuel Pepys’ character, one which even in his own day, he would not have wanted to be publicly aired.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Feb 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781526717313

Geoffrey Pimm

Geoffrey Pimm is a retired Member of the Institute of Risk Management and the Business Continuity Institute, London, with working experience in twenty-three countries (Australia, Belgium, China, Dubai, Eire, England, Finland, France, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, Kuwait; Luxembourg, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand) often in dangerous and/or challenging environments. Assignments have ranged from international financial organizations to national governments and security agencies. For more than thirty years, Geoff was a UK qualified private pilot of both single and twin-engined aircraft, amassing hundreds of hours flying both modern and vintage aircraft, with thirty-three aircraft types in his log book, including several ex-RAF marques. Now retired with his wife to the English countryside, Geoff was for several years a Parish Councillor and is now kept busy writing, singing in two male voice choirs, compèring concerts, growing fruit and vegetables, driving his 1937 Morgan sports car and doting on his five grandchildren and four step grandchildren.