A Journal of the Plague Year (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

by Daniel Defoe (Author), Jason Goodwin (Introduction) "It was about the Beginning of September 1664, that I, among the Rest of my Neighbours, heard in ordinary Discourse, that the Plague was return'd..." (more)
Key Phrases: dreadful manner, Lord Mayor, Plague Year, Number of People (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A cunning work of art; a confidence trick of the imagination."
--Anthony Burgess -- Review

Review
"A cunning work of art; a confidence trick of the imagination."
--Anthony Burgess

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library; 1 edition (November 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375757899
• ISBN-13: 978-0375757891
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #649,247 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Public health primer, January 15, 2003

By	A.J. (Maryland) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Probably one of the first examples of journalistic fiction, Defoe's "A Journal of the Plague Year" is a pseudo-eyewitness account of the London plague of 1665. Writing this in 1722, Defoe casts himself into the role of his uncle whom he calls H.F. and who recounts the events in grisly detail but with magnanimous compassion. Aside from the prose, the book has a surprisingly modern edge in the way it combines facts about a sensationally dire historical event with "human interest" stories for personal appeal. It seems so factual that at times it's easy to forget that it's just a fictitious account of a real event.

The plague (H.F. writes) arrives by way of carriers from the European mainland and spreads quickly through the unsanitary, crowded city despite official preventive measures; the symptoms being black bruises, or "tokens," on the victims' bodies, resulting in fever, delirium, and usually death in a matter of days. The public effects of the plague are readily imaginable: dead-carts, mass burial pits, the stench of corpses not yet collected, enforced quarantines, efforts to escape to the countryside, paranoia and superstitions, quacks selling fake cures, etc. Through all these observations, H.F. remains a calm voice of reason in a city overtaken by panic and bedlam. By the time the plague has passed, purged partly by its own self-limiting behavior and partly by the Great Fire of the following year, the (notoriously inaccurate) Bills of Mortality indicate the total death toll to be about 68,000, but the actual number is probably more like 100,000 -- about a fifth of London's population.

Like Defoe's famous survivalist sketch "Robinson Crusoe," the book's palpable moralism is adequately camouflaged by the conviction of its narrative and the humanity of its narrator, a man who, like Crusoe, trusts God's providence to lead him through the hardships, come what may. What I like about this "Journal" is that its theme is more relevant than its narrow, dated subject matter suggests: levelheadedness in the face of catastrophe and the emergence of a stronger and wiser society.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning blend of fact and imagination., September 9, 2000

By	Frank Lynch "frank_lynch" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Journal of the Plague Year (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

Defoe has pulled off something brilliant here. Although he was only 5 years old in 1665 (the year of the title), in 1720 he set down a narrative full of rich details blending fact and imagination. The thoroughness of his descriptions and the constant realism come close to convincing you that these are first-hand observations: but these are *not* first hand observations; his narrator is a fiction, recalling events he saw as an adult.

The persuasiveness of Defoe's fiction comes from his specificity, and little comments suggesting the narrator has an additional life outside the Journal. He mentions not only the dead (and the increasing losses), but the quacks taking advantage of the gullible, the quarantining of infected houses, the marks on the doors, the efforts to escape from quarantined houses, the efforts of the mayor's offfice to limit the spread of infection, and the public pits where the bodies were thrown. And so on into the facets of everyday life. Through it all, his portrayal of the narrator also has a personal richness, a consistent first-person perspective; the conceit is reinforced by insertions such as "what I wrote of my private meditations I reserve for private use, and desire it may not be made public on any account whatever." The narrator is a product of Defoe's imagination, of course, and similarly, any private meditations such a narrator would have. But Defoe has cleverly made the narrator real.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So realistic you forget you're reading fiction, July 21, 2000

By	Bluestalking Reader "Bluestalking Reader" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials of the Most Remarkable Occurrences, As Well (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Daniel Defoe put a lot of research into his 'Journal of the Plague Year,' yet it doesn't read like a history report. Rather, this is a novel so realistic you can quite literally feel what it must have been like to have lived in London at the time of the plague. The facts as he knew them, both from reading and interviews with those who lived through it, are revealed to us throughout the narrative. You get every detail of the plague, from the symptoms to the hysteria to the steps the government took to help insure the safety of the people. 'Journal of the Plague Year' is a fascinating and imminently readable book.