A Journal of the Plague Year

What It's About

This is a first-person account of the Great Plague of London in 1665, narrated by a saddler known only as "H. F." He chooses to stay in the city while thousands flee. He walks the streets, watches the dead-carts pass, and records the shuttered houses, the panic, and the rumours. The book reads like a documentary, mixing personal anecdote with mortality figures, official orders, and stories from the parish. Although it was presented as a genuine memoir, it is a work of historical fiction. Defoe was about five years old when the plague struck, and he built the book from research and memory of the period.

Key Concepts

The book explores how ordinary people respond to a catastrophe they cannot control. It looks at the conflict between fleeing and staying, between faith and fatalism, and between public duty and self-preservation. It also examines the human cost of quarantine measures, in particular the shutting up of infected households, and the way fear, quack remedies, and false prophets spread alongside the disease. Critics have long debated its reliability as history and noted that it is episodic and repetitive, with long lists of statistics. Others see this as exactly what makes the narrator's bewildered, piecemeal view of events feel so convincing.

About the Author

Daniel Defoe (c. 1660-1731) was an English writer, journalist, and pamphleteer. He was also a merchant who knew both financial success and bankruptcy, and he was involved in the political and religious controversies of his day. He was a prolific commentator on public affairs.