The Guardian, 17 June 2006: Today John Evelyn is mainly known as a meticulous diarist who recorded for more than 60 years the minutiae of his age - from his own cleanliness to coronations. Although a friend of the vivacious Samuel Pepys, Evelyn was much more uptight and restrained. As a result his diary is less entertaining than Pepys's, but Evelyn's horticultural writing is delightful.
Evelyn was born in 1620 into a family of minor gentry who owned Wotton, an estate in Surrey. A staunch royalist, he left England after the outbreak of civil war in 1642. For almost 10 years he travelled the Continent, where he visited many gardens, nurseries and gardeners - picking up ideas which he later incorporated in his own gardens and writings. Although he was interested in designs, flowers and their cultivation, his greatest passion was trees. He wrote the first (and only) bestseller on forestry: Sylva, a Discourse of Forest Trees was published in 1664 and addressed deforestation and the shortage of timber.