A Journal of the Plague Year

This article is about the eighteenth-century novel. For the twentieth-century novel, see Journals of the Plague Years. For the Tom Rapp album, see A Journal of the Plague Year (album).

A Journal of the Plague Year
Title page of the original edition in 1722
AuthorDaniel Defoe
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistorical novel
Set inLondon, 1665
PublisherE. Nutt
J. Roberts
A. Dodd
J. Graves
Publication date
1722
Publication placeGreat Britain
Media typePrint
Pages287
823.5
LC ClassPR3404 .J6
TextA Journal of the Plague Year at Wikisource

A Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials, Of the most Remarkable Occurrences, As well Publick as Private, which happened in London During the last Great Visitation In 1665, commonly called A Journal of the Plague Year, is a book by Daniel Defoe, first published in March 1722. It is an account of one man's experiences of the year 1665, in which the bubonic plague struck the city of London in what became known as the Great Plague of London, the last epidemic of plague in that city. The book is told somewhat chronologically, though without sections or chapter headings, and with frequent digressions and repetitions.[1]

Presented as an eyewitness account of the events at the time, it was written in the years just prior to the book's first publication in March 1722. Defoe was only five years old in 1665 when the Great Plague took place, and the book itself was published under the initials H. F. and is probably based on the journals of Defoe's uncle, Henry Foe, who, like 'H. F.', was a saddler who lived in the Whitechapel district of East London.

In the book, Defoe goes to great pains to achieve an effect of verisimilitude, identifying specific neighbourhoods, streets, and even houses in which events took place. Additionally, it provides tables of casualty figures and discusses the credibility of various accounts and anecdotes received by the narrator.

The book is often compared to the actual, contemporary accounts of the plague in the diary of Samuel Pepys. Defoe's account, which appears to include much research, is far more systematic and detailed than Pepys's first-person account.

Portrait of the author, Daniel Defoe
  1. ^ Ford-Smith, Alice (January 2012). "Book Review: A Journal of the Plague Year". Med Hist. 56 (1): 98–99. doi:10.1017/S0025727300000338. PMC 3314902.