A Journal of the Plague Year Paperback by Daniel Defoe

Product Details

• Publisher: Modern Library (2001-11-13)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 272 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780375757891
• Item Weight: 246.56 grams
• Dimensions: 20.14 x 13.34 x 1.45 cm

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.

About the Author

Jason Goodwin's works include Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire; A Time for Tea: Travels Through China and India in Search of Tea; and On Foot to the Golden Horn: A Walk to Istanbul.