On the civil war breaking out in Charles the Ist's time, he retired from business and went to live near his birth place, Stafford, where he had previously bought some land.

Here the last forty years of his long life were spent in ease and recreation.

When not angling or visiting friends, mostly brethren of the angle, he engaged in the light literary work of compiling biographies and in collecting material for the enrichment of his _Compleat Angler_.

Published in 1653, this ran through five editions in 23 years, besides a reprint in 1664 of the third edition (1661).
In spite of the many similarities between Evelyn and Pepys as to university education, official position, political partisanship, and social and scientific status in London, there are yet such essential differences between what has been bequeathed to us by these two friends that comparison between them is almost impossible.

They are both authors: but it was by chance rather than by design that Pepys ultimately acquired repute as an author, whereas Evelyn at once achieved the literary fame he desired and wrote for.