London's favourite diarist continues to fill page after page

Hundreds of people will file into Guildhall in the City of London today to hear a lecture on him. A mile away in Trafalgar Square an exhibition of portraits of his life and times will open.

At Magdalene College in Cambridge there has been renewed interest in his library. His diaries, which illuminate 17th-century London, are selling keenly in bookshops. This autumn the BBC is screening a drama on the more salacious parts of his life starring the comedian Steve Coogan.

Interest in Samuel Pepys has been rising in recent months, thanks in no small part to a celebrated biography by the writer Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self.

The book has been a runaway success since its publication in November, selling tens of thousands of hardbacks (with plans for a 150,000 paperback edition), winning the Whitbread prize for non-fiction and gathering plaudits from critics everywhere.

The public's appetite for all things relating to the naval administrator, amateur librarian, courtier, diarist, lover of music and follower of scientific developments shows no signs of being sated.

About 600 people are expected to attend the first of two lectures being given by Tomalin this week, the first in Guildhall's Old Library and a second at the Oxford Literary Festival. A spokesman for the organiser, the Samuel Pepys Club, said the fact that this year marked the 300th anniversary of Pepys' death and the success of the biography had helped to rekindle interest in one of London's most famous sons.

An exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery also opens today, with an emphasis on the lives and personalities of the influential people of Pepys' day, as seen through his keen and critical eye. It will continue until the end of September and features portraits of many of his navy colleagues as well as the architect Christopher Wren, Pepys' patron Edward Montague (Earl of Sandwich) and King Charles II, of whom Pepys was a favourite.

Tony Lacey, publishing director of Penguin, believes the Pepys revival stems from the fact that most people have an affectionate – but sketchy – memory of the diarist. "They think he was that womaniser from the 17th century who wrote a diary and ran the Navy, " he said.

An exhibition on Pepys, who bestowed historians with an eyewitness account of the Great Fire of London, is already open at Guildhall and another opens at the Museum of London on May 8.

Later this year BBC2 will screen a 90-minute film drama on Pepys' life, written by Guy Jenkin, scriptwriter of Drop The Dead Donkey, featuring Pepys' often stormy relationship with his wife and his many infidelities.