The guitar is the most played instrument in the West. This is the first account of its rise in Stuart England.

This is the first history of the guitar during the reign of the Stuarts, a time of great political and social upheaval in England. In this engaging and original volume, Christopher Page gathers a rich array of portraits, literary works and other, previously unpublished, archival materials in order to create a comprehensive picture of the guitar from its early appearances in Jacobean records, through its heyday at the Restoration court in Whitehall, to its decline in the first decades of the eighteenth century. The book explores the passion of Charles II himself for the guitar, and that of Samuel Pepys, who commissioned the largest repertoire of guitar-accompanied song to survive from baroque Europe. Written in Page's characteristically approachable style, this volume will appeal to general readers as well as to music historians and guitar specialists.