Journal of the Plague Year

This work follows Daniel Defoe's fictional narrator as he traces the devastating progress of the plague through the streets of London. Here we see a city transformed - some of its streets suspiciously empty and some overwhelmingly full of the sounds and smells of human suffering.

Reviews

“One of the most original and harrowing accounts of living through a virulent pandemic . . . as full of meaning about human suffering today as it was when it was written.” —The Daily Beast

“A brilliant account of the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Britain—and it can still educate readers three centuries later.” —BBC News

“[A] classic of plague literature . . . Camus was inspired by this book in writing The Plague.” —The Jerusalem Post

“So grimly immediate . . . you can practically smell the death and decay.” —The Guardian

“A realistic account of the plague’s effects on [London]. Defoe’s novel still has the power to unsettle—like when he writes about families forced into quarantine due to an infected family member.” —Vulture

"Within the texture of Defoe's prose, London becomes a living and suffering being." —Peter Ackroyd