"The most reliable and comprehensive account of the Great Plague that we possess" —Anthony Burgess
In 1665, the Great Plague swept through London, claiming nearly 100,000 lives. In A Journal of the Plague Year, Defoe vividly chronicles the progress of the epidemic. We follow his fictional narrator through a city transformed-the streets and alleyways deserted, the houses of death with crosses daubed on their doors, the dead-carts on their way to the pits-and encounter the horrified citizens of the city, as fear, isolation, and hysteria take hold. The shocking immediacy of Defoe's description of plague-racked London makes this one of the most convincing accounts of the Great Plague ever written.
A Journal of the Plague Year
Chronology
Introduction
Notes
Further Reading
A Note on the Text
A Journal of the Plague Year
Appendix I: The Plague
Appendix II: Topographical Index
Appendix III: London Maps
Appendix IV: Introduction by Anthony Burgess to the 1966 Penguin English Library Edition
Glossary
Notes
"Within the texture of Defoe's prose, London becomes a living and suffering being." (Peter Ackroyd)
