A Journal of the Plague Year - Softcover

Defoe, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1480179779 ISBN 13: 9781480179776

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012

Synopsis

A Journal of the Plague Year is a novel by Daniel Defoe, 1660-1731, first published in March 1722. The novel is a fictionalised account of one man's experiences of the year 1665, in which the Great Plague struck the city of London. The book is told roughly chronologically, though without sections or chapter headings. Although it purports to have been written only a few years after the event, it actually was written in the years just prior to the book's first publication in March 1722. Defoe was only five years old in 1665, and the book itself was published under the initials H. F. The novel probably was based on the journals of Defoe's uncle, Henry Foe. In the book, Defoe goes to great pains to achieve an effect of verisimilitude, identifying specific neighborhoods, streets, and even houses in which events took place. Additionally, it provides tables of casualty figures and discusses the credibility of various accounts and anecdotes received by the narrator. The novel often is compared to the actual, contemporary accounts of the plague in the diary of Samuel Pepys. Defoe's account, although fictionalized, is far more systematic and detailed than Pepys's first-person account. Other notable books by Daniel Defoe include Moll Flanders, and Robinson Crusoe.

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From the Inside Flap

Defoe's account of the bubonic plague that swept London in 1665 remains as vivid as it is harrowing. Based on Defoe's own childhood memories and prodigious research, A Journal of the Plague Year walks the line between fiction, history, and reportage. In meticulous and unsentimental detail it renders the daily life of a city under siege; the often gruesome medical precautions and practices of the time; the mass panics of a frightened citizenry; and the solitary travails of Defoe's narrator, a man who decides to remain in the city through it all, chronicling the course of events with an unwavering eye. Defoe's Journal remains perhaps the greatest account of a natural disaster ever written.
This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the original edition published in 1722.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1480179779
• ISBN 13: 9781480179776
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 162