A Journal of the Plague Year (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

In 2020, the year of the coronavirus, this story of the bubonic plague in London in the year 1666 reveals many surprising similarities and a good many lessons.

I'm hoping the text itself is not error-filled because the Introduction is: it uses the word "inciteful" when it means "insightful" and dates the plague "year" as lasting about 30 years, until "1695." Dover was once a literate operation. A Journal of the Plague Year is available on line but I bought the book because I thought it would be easier to read, The print is crowded but readable with a little straining.

Daniel Defoe wrote this based on another's first hand account and added some artistic license but nevertheless it reads like a factual and at times terrifying account of how the citizens of London reacted to a horrific epidemic in the 17th century. At times it felt like I was reading an episode of the Walking Dead as people banded together in groups and tried to isolate themselves from infection. The book does start slowly with an accounting of the dead by section of the city over time to demonstrate the rapid spread of the disease and some of these passages may be a bit dry. However when the anecdotal stories of individuals and the narrator himself are related the book is remarkably tense and engaging despite some archaic language.For anyone interested in the subject this is actually a more detailed and fascinating account than the one in Samuel Pepys diary of the same period. A short read but one that will truly result in an understanding of a dark episode in London's history.

A gripping account of London in the grip of a terrifying illness. Seen from the vantage point of New York and COVID 19, it is startling to observe so many familiar things; the flight to safety in the countryside of the wealthy, the suffering and unemployment of the poor, the sudden eruption of quackery, social distancing, and the rapid forgetting of everything as soon as things returned to normal. What was different? In 1665, a sincere and generous and honest charity amounting to millions of pounds that fed the survivors and kept them alive. Today there appears to be much less generosity and social responsibility.

I was fascinated by this psuedo-journal. It is not Defore's real work, but a compilation of journals of various people and their experience during the second major London plague.The wbook can be considered as a textbook even today. The information on attempts on control the progress of the disease, the medical understanding on how it was transmitted and the progress in an individual can be a basis for understanding plague and like infectious diseases today.What I found riveting is the desperation at different levels of society. The poorest people were forced to carry the dead to burial in order to earn money for food thus exposing themselves to higher levels of contagion. Then there were the people who were shut up after finding that a member or two had the disease. The attempts and successes to get free and escape (or not) are described. Then too there are sections on religion and the attitude toward ministers and priests who elected to stay and pray with people and those that fled.Finally the reporting of the disease and the probable underreporting. All of this would be played out even today with a highly infectious disease especially in poor countries. The only advantages we have now is the ability to identify the virus and start a process to create a cure. However the spread of bad information and quack cures is very similar to what existed (or worse) because of the internet and the social process of passing on misinformation.I gave the book a four and considered a three rating for the following reasons:1) It is very hard to read. It has not been "translated" to modern English and the sentences are stilted and some of the words are very out-of-date or have changed meaning.2) It is repetitious because of the compiling of the journals into one. For example the lists of ill people ("bills" as they were called) are cited several times over and are very confusing. The point that they were not reliable was repeated several times.3) The progress of the disease from one place to another and from one month to another is confusing. A map and an organized timetable along with the journals would have greatly improved the work.I found myself skipping over many paragraphs because of the wording.In spite of this, if you are interested in plagues and the spread of major diseases from a social or psychological point of view, it is worth ploughing through to get a feeling of the horror of the numbers, the transmission of the disease and the reactions to the threat from both a community and personal point of view.

Horrifying, compelling --this reads like a brilliant eye-witness account of the plague and becomes even more impressive each time you remind yourself that Dafoe's account is imaganative, based enitely on oral and recorded history and not his own experiences.

DeFoe’s historical novel feels like a first person account of the plague. What a great read during the 2020 CCP Virus pandemic.

Based on a relative's journal, Defoe presents a compelling study of the 1665 plague as it affected London. Other reviewers note many parallels with present day behaviour in the face of Covid-19. That's true. One is that the love of money often mattered more than sensible precaution to many back then, as it still does today. And, whereas today it's social media that pedals myths and falsehoods, then it was all done more personally. False cures being sold to gullible folk for money in hand and anyone being turned to who seemed to offer hope of salvation. The main difference between then and now is that in 1665 to be infected meant death in more than 99% of cases. In the face of that, the bravery and self-sacrifice of some people back then is remarkable. In comparison, death rates today are tiny. The book was written over 350 years ago. Don't attempt to read it if you are unwilling to allow for that fact. People thought and wrote differently then. But if you can adapt to the flow, it's an informative and thought provoking read.

Fiction it might be, though apparently based on the diaries of his uncle Henry Foe (the H.F. who purportedly authors the account) Daniel Defoes "Journal of the Plague Year" is a fascinating account of the Bubonic plague that struck London in the year 1665.While essentially a work of fiction, the level of detail, the statistics, anecodotes and endless conjecturing give the work a strong semblance of veracity. The reader is compelled to read on through the terrifying details of a plague that in all probability took around 100,000 lives during the year that it raged. One of the interesting features of the book is the conflict between science and religion, is a continuous thread throughout. Defoes author H.F. writes in a profoundly religous tone, early on in the book a group of mocking aetheists who coarsely drink and curse their way through the plague are, each and everyone, struck down and deposited in the communal grave before two pages are out. At the same time there is a recognition of scientific attempts to understand and control the plague, the shutting up of houses is much discussed as well as the variety of "preventatives" that offer protection from infection. Much of the book is given over to a variety of speculations, and given the state of medical science at the time of writing a good many of the conjectures verge on the amusing. The author even tells of one theory, of small organisms in the blood, only to scoff at it while the modern reader may sense as good a description of bacteria as that age could furnish.A good deal of the facts are horrifying, whole families dying, the nightly horse and cart patrols to collect the dead for communal graves, people maddened by the infection running through the streets unhindered, the dying screams of those shut up in their homes to die. It is a puzzle at first where they find men to collect the dead and women to nurse the sick until later in the book the author contemplates the plight of the poor. It simply seems that if they did not take these jobs they would have starved to death as all other industry and employment had ground to a halt, the risk of dying of the plague seemed a better bet than the certainty of dying of starvation.Definitely an interesting book though some may find the grotesque grammer and lengthy sentences a little too much. The edition I purchased was from Dover classics and consisted of just the journal itself and I felt my ability to get the most from the book was undermined by not having the additional context that a good set of footnotes and introduction should provide.

Although this is a literary work, Defoe lived at the time of the plague and drew on the experiences of people he knew. What is striking is the parallel with today's pandemic, in the behaviour of people, the reaction of authorities, and the appearance of what were then quacks and necromancers, and today are conspiracy theorists.A cautionary lesson, well worthwhile, not a difficult read.

I really enjoyed dipping into this fictional account of the plague in London. I found that reading short sections that caught ones interest was the way to gain enjoyment from reading this book.There are super vignettes such as the lady thieves who just wandered into the store house of a neighbour (who had fled to the country) and wandered off wearing hats stolen from the store house! Or the piper who was mistaken for a corpse and taken in the body waggon and he sat up from underneath a pile of bodies and wondered where he was.Give it a bash. Far too dry for a straight read - unless you are studying the book for a specific purpose - but a super dive in dive out book!

I read this book years ago when I was at school and decided to give it another go after hearing it discussed on the radio. I found it very interesting and although it is a fictious account Defoe tells a fascinating story which grips you. The writing is of the period and occasionally requires you to concentrate quite hard but it gives an amazing insight into what it was like to live through a very dramatic period of our history.