Although the century which followed Andrew Marvell's death remembered him primarily as a politician and a pamphleteer, this gifted poet is responsible for some of the most brilliant lyric exploration of his time. World Enough and Time is an extensive biography written by Nicholas Murray, a biographer whose literary scholarship and political astuteness matches that of his subject.

In 1660 Samuel Pepys, an increasingly-important 26 year-old civil servant in London, began writing his diary. He stopped a decade later. Pepys begins his diary at a crucial point in Britain's history. In September 1658, Oliver Cromwell died, passing the title of Protector (king in all but name) to his son Richard. Pepys' employer, Edward Mountagu was closely associated with the Cromwells' reign and the 1656-7 attempt to make Oliver king (Oliver refused...