A Journal of the Plague Year

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

—

Title

A Journal of the Plague Year

Language

en

Book source

Global Grey

Description max 80 words

Daniel Defoe's seminal 1722 novel offers a vivid, first-person account of life in London during the devastating 1665 plague. Blending historical fact with fictional narrative, the text explores themes of fear, survival, and societal collapse as citizens flee, barricade themselves, or succumb to the disease. With its gritty realism and moral introspection, the book remains a powerful exploration of human resilience under the shadow of catastrophe.

Summary up to 500 words

Set in London during the summer of 1665, Daniel Defoe's *A Journal of the Plague Year* offers a harrowing first-person account of the bubonic plague's devastation. The narrative follows the narrator, a sailmaker living near Aldgate, who meticulously documents the terrifying progression of the disease. Initially dismissed as mere rumors from Holland, the plague arrives quietly, marked by the first deaths in Long Acre and St Giles's parish. As the weekly bills of mortality rise dramatically, the city descends into panic; wealthy families flee to the countryside, leaving the poor to starve or die in their homes. The narrator and his friends, including a soldier and a joiner, decide to escape the infection. They pool their meager resources to travel northward, navigating a city where roads are blocked by desperate crowds and rumors of riots. The narrative details the gruesome symptoms of the disease, the social stigma of the infected, and the desperate measures taken to purify homes with fire and chemicals. As the summer heat intensifies, the death toll soars, reaching thousands in a few weeks. Yet, the narrator witnesses a miraculous, unexplained abatement of the plague in late August, leading to a sudden, overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude. The story concludes with reflections on the fragility of life, the fickleness of public sentiment, and a final stanza of thanks to God for deliverance, acknowledging that while many were healed, the memory of the horror remains etched in the collective consciousness of the city.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

Download URL

https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/ebooks/daniel-defoe_journal-of-the-plague-year.epub

Local file path

data/epubs/url-a785841883d266dd.epub

Download EPUB

Downloaded at

2026-07-01 06:13 UTC

Categories

• Fiction
• Historical Fiction