Although it chronicled an epidemic of the previous century, A Journal of the Plague Year was written with an eye on contemporary events. In 1720, an outbreak in Marseille had claimed 100,000 lives, and Defoe, like many others, was afraid that the plague would once again make landfall in England. Those fears echo through the centuries to chill any modern reader dipping into Dafoe's vivid narrative with its unrelenting detail. The narrator, identified only as H.F., takes the reader on a nightmarish journey around the near-deserted streets, quarantined houses and overflowing plague pits of the stricken city. This Folio edition includes a reproduction of Wenceslaus Hollar’s famous map of London before the Great Fire of 1666, helping the reader to connect the places mentioned to many that still exist in the modern city.
‘Part adventure story, part social commentary, part survivalist instruction manual... A wonderfully vivid account of a city under siege from disease.’
- Financial Times