SAMUEL Pepys was a man who looked out of his London window and saw England's destiny unfurl before his eyes.

Few can have been as blessed as this most revered of chroniclers, this man who committed his thoughts to paper during an age when the foundations of this country's imperial future were being laid.

He saw it all. Born into a land yet to suffer the ravages of civil war, Pepys lived through the plague, Great Fire Of London, Dutch Wars and the Popish Plot.

He watched as kings were toppled and a dictator fell from grace. In his lifetime, he was to witness England's rise as a world power and the seeds sown of an empire that would endure for 250 years.

Pepys's diaries are a constant classic bestseller and yet they cover only a decade of his life. This biography fills in the other 60 years as acclaimed writer Stephen Coote casts light on Pepys's world, a stage upon which he would be eyewitness to numerous key events.

But we are also treated to intimate glimpses into the private man, his marriage to a 15-year-old bride and the many notorious adulterous liaisons that would punctuate his life.

This book is a revealing and extraordinary portrait of the man, his life and times. As he rose in rank to become one of the leading civil servants of his day - in many respects he was the founding father of the English Navy - we are privy to his thoughts as he literally laid the keel to this country's might and influence across the globe.

As the first major biography of Samuel Pepys in more than 25 years, Stephen Coote's masterpiece will undoubtedly find its way on the bookshelves of all those interested in the formation of Britain as a nation state.

John Phillpott