John Evelyn

Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets (Dodo Press) John Evelyn

John Evelyn (1620-1706) was an English writer, gardener and diarist. His diaries are largely contemporaneous with those of the other noted diarist of the time, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time (he witnessed the deaths of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell, the last Great Plague of London, and the Great Fire of London in 1666. ). Evelyn and Pepys corresponded frequently and much of this correspondence has been preserved. It was after the Restoration that Evelyn's career really took off. In 1660, he was a member of the group that founded the Royal Society. The following year, he wrote the Fumifugium (or The Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated), the first book written on the growing pollution problem in London. He was known for his knowledge of trees, and his treatise Sylva; or, Discourse on Forest Trees (1664) was written as an encouragement to landowners to plant trees to provide timber for England's burgeoning navy.