Evelyn, John (ēv`əlĭn, ĕv`lĭn), 1620–1706, English diarist and miscellaneous writer. Although of royalist sympathies, he took little active part in the civil war. After 1652 he lived as a wealthy country gentleman at Sayes Court, Deptford, where he cultivated his garden and wrote on various subjects, including reforestation, natural science, the history of art, and numismatics. After the Restoration he became a public servant and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. His best-known work is his lifelong diary, less intimate than that of Pepys, but full of historical information about 17th-century England. It was first published in 1818 (modern ed. by E. S. de Beer, 6 vol., 1955). He is also famous for his Life of Mrs. Godolphin (ed. by Harriet Sampson, 1939).

Bibliography

See biographies by W. Hiscock (1955), A. Ponsonby (1933, repr. 1969), and B. Saunders (1970); F. Harris, Transformations of Love (2003).

Evelyn, John

(born Oct. 31, 1620, Wotton, Surrey, Eng.—died Feb. 27, 1706, Wotton) British writer. A country gentleman from a wealthy landowning family, he wrote some 30 books on the fine arts, forestry, and religious topics. His Diary (published 1818), which he kept from 1631 to 1706, is an invaluable source of information on 17th-century social, cultural, religious, and political life. His Life of Mrs. Godolphin (published 1847) is one of the most moving of 17th-century biographies.