Sporting a periwig and ridiculously grandiose 17th-century clothes weren’t the only things Daniel Mays needed to do to turn into Samuel Pepys. The acerbic diarist was also a rather portly fellow so, ...

Can any of your readers explain the principle of the scotoscope which Pepys defines in his diary (Aug. 13, 1664) as an instrument enabling objects to be viewed “in a dark room”? It seems scarcely ...