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.
