The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol. 7: 1666

That wild and crazy guy of the 17th century - Samuel Pepys - continues his escapades in London and environs. In this volume: troubles with the French, the Dutch and the Spanish king, carousing and womanizing, serious financial troubles in the government, the plague continues its horrific course, and Pepys' astounding report of the Great Fire of London! Much too scandalous to be published in its own time, this first person account sheds an entirely different light on Pepys' times. The Great Fire burned for more than four months. Near the beginning, Pepys wrote: "...we ... saw the fire grow; and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. ... we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruins."