Book
A Plague on Mr Pepys
London, 1665. As plague spreads through the city, Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Bagwell wants her carpenter husband Will to secure advancement through the Navy. Her attempt to cultivate Samuel Pepys as a useful patron exposes her to a relationship in which the balance of power is dangerously unequal, while Will becomes entangled with a supposed remedy for the disease.
The Great Plague strips away ordinary protections as trade collapses, households close and fear reshapes the streets. By focusing on Bess rather than Pepys, the novel combines the documented world of the diary with a fictional reconstruction of a woman whose own voice has not survived, exploring ambition, coercion, marriage and survival during one of London’s worst epidemics.
Historical people
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