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A Journal of the Plague Year, written by a citizen who continued all the while in London Kindle Edition

by Daniel Defoe (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 739 ratings
Customers reported quality issues in this eBook. This eBook has: Typos.
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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
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  1. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  2. Publication date
    May 17, 2012
  3. Language
    English
  4. File size
    412 KB
  5. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0084B57VO
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Amazon Digital Services, Inc. (May 17, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 17, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 412 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 202 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ B08B39QLK2
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 739 ratings

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
739 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

movie viewer
5.0 out of 5 stars An old classic that is remarkably timely this year of another kind of plague.
Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2020
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I first read this book in high school back in the sixties. It has haunted me ever since. As I watched the news cover the process of the pandemic, bits from the book began popping out of my memory as a sense of Deja vu. It is interesting that the techniques Defoe described as having had the best effect are forms of the most highly recommended actions today. Isolation by those unaffected. Quarantine for the infected. Although the book doesn't mention masks, other images from the time show that the medical practitioners of the time used a primitive form of mask as they went about their duties.
Daniel Dafoe was a deeply religious man, and he was not the least bit shy of showing his beliefs as it applied to the times he writes about. He was also not shy of denouncing what he saw as medical and religious quackery when he saw it. This may be a turn off to modern atheists and agnostics, but it was common to the time, and had a real effect as to the behavior of people at that time. What ever your personal beliefs, this is a book that echoes eerily down to the present day. When the survivors of Covid sit back to evaluate the history of the pandemic, they should include this book in their bibliography. There were questions raised there that will still need answers next year and the year after that. The ancients said that a life unexamined is a life wasted. The modern form could be that a death unexamined is a death wasted. What would the ancients say about a hundred thousand deaths unexamined? Defoe took time to examine the deaths of his early life. He has lessons to teach us. Science now knows that much of the science of his time was incorrect. What amazes me is how much of that science was correct.
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars One Year Near the Gates of Hell
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2016
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A number of the Amazon commenters have provided very good reviews of this work. The review by Rick Skwiot from July 5, 2010, is extremely detailed and well written; I recommend it highly. I shall mention only a few aspects of this work that surprised and intrigued me.
The work is classified as a “novel” and is discussed in most reviews as a work of fiction. It is a work of fiction in the sense that the first person narrator is a fictional person (probably based on Defoe’s uncle) because Defoe, himself, would have been only 5 years old in 1665 at the time of the Great London Plague. However, it is a well-researched report of a historical event through fictional eyes. I believe that the anecdotes and events reported were for the most part real and developed based on detailed interviews with survivors of the event and on contemporary records. I would classify the work more as a “non-fiction novel,” somewhat in the nature of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.” Capote claimed that “non-fiction novels” do not include first-person viewpoint. Well, this was well before Capote’s time, and Defoe’s work may take precedence over Capote’s pontification.
Defoe continues to write in his essentially simple, but detailed and informative style. The journalist states a number of times that he intends the journal to be of assistance to understanding how to deal with such an event if it should recur. The journalist is at times repetitive and the work includes far too much detail of “death and disease” statistics for a 21st century reader; but at the time the work was published these would likely have been of interest to readers and certainly of interest to any future reader using the book as a guide to dealing with a similar event.
One oddity of the book – there are no chapter or section divisions; the largest subdivision of the text is paragraphs. Another oddity of Defoe’s style, he uses the phrase “I say” as a kind of intensifier or conjunction quite frequently, especially early in the book. I’ve not seen this done by any other writer; but Defoe frequently used it as a device to remind the reader that he is continuing on a thought that he started several lines earlier. I found it an interesting literary device that causes the writer to seem more as if he is speaking directly to the reader.
It is clear from Defoe’s descriptions that a vast majority of the populace and the physicians all generally considered spread of the plague to be an infection or contagion that went from one person to another by some physical means, possibly by exhalation or body odors, possibly by body fluids, possibly by materials handled by a diseased person, etc. They did not consider the disease to be caused by something ambient in the air or caused by an act of divine providence upon specific individuals. So, their expectation would be that a completely isolated person or family would be safe from the disease. With this understanding, it is somewhat surprising to me that physicians or other scientists of the time did not figure out that the vector for the plague – if it was indeed bubonic plague, as generally attributed – was vermin of one sort or another. They would not have had the knowledge to correctly assign the root cause to bacteria carried by fleas; however, it seems to me that they should have had the capability to figure out that the vector was fleas on rats or other small rodents or, if not the fleas, then at least the animals themselves. Yet, this connection was never made or even suggested.
Significant parts of the journal describe the plight of the working poor during this crisis. With the wealthy fleeing the city and many businesses closing, the individuals who worked daily for their bread lost their normal source of income and ability to buy food. The journalist gives high praise to the Lord Mayor of London and his Aldermen for their management of this aspect of the crisis.
The book is well worth the time it takes to read.
49 people found this helpful
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Clare Anderson
3.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting but a tiresome read
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2020
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It was amazing to get an account aid how people and government responded to the plague. There are a lot of similarities to the current pandemic in government and people’s responses although the mortality rate is much lower with Coronavirus than it was with the plague.
The account had much repetition of certain thoughts with long explanations of why the writer believes as he does. This gets tiring. Accounts of the beginning, middle and end of the plague are recounted numerous times which also I found tiring. It felt at times like I was hearing a long serum that I wish would end.
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nan
5.0 out of 5 stars WE have it better
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2020
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This was a good read. It made me know that our covid 19 is not as bad as the Black Plague. Sick people being locked in their homes with their families, and a guard set at their door, is so sad. Sometimes whole families died. Asymptomatic people dropping dead on the street was alarming. Then there were the telltale black spots on those who were sick, and those who died, gangerene. That was part of the Black Plague in London at that time. So many died that they dug a long deep trench for a grave, and layered the dead. Interlaced throughout were some positive stories, and some humor.
Somehow, it made me feel better about our conditions, and less afraid.
NEP
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rjp
5.0 out of 5 stars 1665 and 2020 Parallels
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2020
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What makes this such a fascinating read in the year of the coronavirus are the number of parallels between 2020 and 1665. Social distancing. Shelter-in-place. Fools who defy plague/virus to their peril. Rampant fear. Numbers of deaths that level off. Commerce disruption. Heroes who serve others at great personal risk. Capable, wise public servants who learn on the job and develop sound public policies. Charitable people who willingly share with those in need. While acknowledging Defoe is without question one of the great writers of the English language, he repeats himself often in his journal which gets a bit tedious for at least this reader.
42 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Evanescence1975
4.0 out of 5 stars Pandemie = Strafe Gottes
Reviewed in Germany on March 30, 2022
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Erstaunliche Parallelen zur Covid-Pandemie. Der große Unterschied ist hier jedoch, dass die Menschen früher wissenschaftlich Lösungsversuche mit religiösen kombiniert haben und auch durch Gebet und Buße versucht haben, die Pest von sich abzuwenden. In unserer heutigen sekulären Welt ist es ja verpönt, die Vermutung zu äußern, dass Covid eine Strafe Gottes für sündhaftes menschliches Verhalten sein könnte.
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Mad Margaret
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and informative
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 5, 2020
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If you are worried about covid then I can heartily recommend this romp through the plague of1665. Bring back happy memories of Monty Python's Black Death chant of 'bring out yer dead' and relive the horrors of being locked in your house with no escape, because your stupid maid caught 'the distemper', knowing that your entire household will almost certainly die too. Seriously, it's a window to the past and we can only hope the clowns currently in charge take a moment to learn from it. I doubt they will.
4 people found this helpful
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Prairie Echoes
5.0 out of 5 stars Graphic, thoughtful and compelling.
Reviewed in Canada on May 27, 2014
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I wished to look in at the plague years in London. I was not disappointed. An excellent account that was quite readable despite differences in language..
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mike_bc_canada
4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and detailed account of the 1665 plague
Reviewed in Canada on August 15, 2020
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A historically accurate account of the plague which swept through London in 1665, by Daniel Defoe, best known for Robinson Crusoe. Interesting to read about older plagues, and compare with the modern Covid-19 pandemic. The archaic language and style was tough going at first, but I found I got used to it. The Kindle version is generally good, however tables of facts and figures are not formatted correctly. You can find other versions on the web with correctly formatted tables, however it’s not as easy to read the whole book online as it is to read on Kindle.
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V. G. Harwood
4.0 out of 5 stars Take in slowly
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 4, 2013
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If you've ever watched films like "Contagion" or anything where a super virus comes along and threatens to wipe out civilisation, well forget them, because this is the original, classic story of the ultimate super virus which threatened the population. This is a fictionalised account, but you don't need more than a basic grasp of history to know that the events described in this book actually happened; the fear which hung over the streets and the desperate measures people were willing to take are all real. As a result, this is an amazing piece of history and is so well-written; the author captures the events right from the very first whisperings of an outbreak (from the bills of the dead listed each week), the rumours in the streets, the barricading of the afflicted into their houses, the superstitions and those who took advantage of the fearful, the increase in crime, the rise of fear of the very people who had been your neighbours and friends, children fleeing from their parents and (perhaps more shockingly) parents abandoning their children to their fate; up to the final acceptance that in all likelihood the next to person to die would be yourself. The atmosphere of fear is palpable and yet it is told so matter of factly. It is a masterpiece in the conveying of a tale of true terror.

However, (and it's a big however), it is actually quite hard to read. I don't know if its because of the age it was written in (I'm not a huge fan of this period in literature) or if it's just the narration style, but it all gets a bit tiresome sometimes - the endless "bills" of dead people, etc. There's no doubt that this is a great book, and it really does capture the essence of fear on the streets. The author has achieved what he set out to do: "If I could but tell this part in such moving accents as should alarm the very soul of the reader, I should rejoice that I recorded those things, however short and imperfect." but in the end I was reduced to reading 10 pages at a time because if I read any more in one sitting, I just stopped concentrating.

If you have not read this book - it is free on Kindle and worth downloading - there are some great examples of writing in here, but I found you had to read it slowly in order to take everything in.
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