The Journal of the Plague Year

London, 1665

De: Daniel Defoe

Narrado por: Nelson Runger

London's Great Plague of 1665 devastated the city, as Europe's final bubonic outbreak killed thousands of helpless citizens. Daniel Defoe, author of the classic Robinson Crusoe, was five years old when the Plague swept through London, and grew up hearing many stories - some truthful, others exaggerated - of its deadly effects. Blending those anecdotes with his childhood recollections and factual data from government registers, Defoe wrote this comprehensive account of what happened to London in 1665. Both a harrowing historical novel and a reliable journalistic record, Defoe recreates a living, suffering city trying to cope with an incurable, rapidly spreading disease.

©1988 Daniel Defoe (P)1988 Recorded Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

"...the work stands as the most reliable and comprehensive account of the Great Plague that we possess." (Anthony Burgess)

history repeats itself

everything is very similar to what is going on i our time i really recommend this book

Great read

Defoe, like all Brit-lit, is brilliant as always in this gripping and frightful tale of a deadly resurgence pf the Plague. Eerily similar to the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the measures taken...human nature never changes.

Written when?!

Good lord this could have been written today! Very interesting, no it’s not a novel or “story” but much can be learned. Chapter 10 could be applied exactly today. Ppl’s attitude on how you get it, they are fine, how there needs to be contact tracing,etc. Even the “God’s wrath” belief is the same! We seem to have learned nothing, it was all laid out here.

history fact or fiction

The story is very interesting with points never thought of before I read the book, BUT if the author was only a little boy during the actual plague year how did he know all this information. So the story could be factual but it seemed to have a little fiction thrown in for good measure.

Great book

I liked the book. It is more like a seminar than a story. If you like college lectures you will like this book. I really enjoyed the narrative and will seek out other books read by him.

How History Repeats Itself...

Published over 60 years after the event, "A Journal of the Plague Year" by Daniel Defoe chronicles the bubonic plague that raged in London and the surrounding English countryside from 1665-1666. Defoe was only a young boy when the plague took place, so years later he took public accounts and anecdotal evidence to put this docu-drama together.

Defoe uses the framing device of fictional characters living in London throughout the epidemic as a means through which to discuss factual events while also protecting himself from criticism in case he got certain particulars incorrect. I quite enjoyed "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston, so I was drawn to how Defoe describes this great plague. It is a bit long for something that is much more descriptive than being extremely character or plot driven, but the plague vs. the city of London herself are more characters than individual people are, so I give this book a lot of slack for that.

As such, I am not an historian for this period, so I took a lot of what Defoe describes at face value. I could not help but compare and contrast how the transmission and spread of the plague, as well as how people responded to mass graves and forced shut downs, to what the United States of America has been facing since March 2020. Data suggests that nearly 100,000 out of over 700,000 (or ~15%) of the London population died from the 1665 bubonic plague, while only over 700,000 out of nearly 331 million (or ~0.15%) of the U.S. population has died thus far from COVID-19. This is not to diminish how horrible COVID has been, for we are still going through our pandemic, and with all of our medical advancements and understandings of how disease transmission and prevention works, my biggest takeaway from "A Journal of the Plague Year" is that human behavior has not changed that much in the past 350+ years.

For any infectious disease historian or researcher of this period in London's history, this is an essential read. Quite eery at times, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic I'm living through at the moment, this was a fitting October/Halloween Time read. In 10-20 years, I will be looking to read what docu-dramas have been written about 2020-2022 U.S. history. I recommend this to anyone willing to reflect on how other people across time have suffered similarly nation-stopping and panic-inducing diseases.

Not compelling

I couldn't get through it. Thought it would be fun during pandemic but I wasn't interested.

A Book for the Times We're Living in Today

Surprisingly this book was written about the London plague of 1665. I can't but shake my head at how people and things really never change, despite advances in medical research, healthy living and overall "enlightened" information being at the tip of everyone's fingertips. Human nature is pretty much the same since the Lord created man and woman and left them to obey (or not) in the Garden of Eden. Knowing what is best and how to protect lives, and doing it . . . are two very different things. It will be interesting to compare the outcome of the 2020 pandemic when its all said and done with the plague of 1665. Sad to say, I predict that folks will soon return to living the same as before the sickness hit.

Compare to COVID

It is amazing how similar the plague in 1664 mirrors what has happened with current COVID. Well worth the read just to make your own comparison. We think we have come so far with medicine, but in modern times as in those, God’s Providence must be praised and honored.

An eye-opening education

My wife was glued to this book, amazed by the facts. It is not a book one listens to for fun or entertainment. It is not a novel it reads more like a journal, a first hand account. It is story after story of a terrifying disease and how it not only destroys the body but the soul as well. One must have a deep interest in the plague or any plague to fully appreciate and understand the affect such a fearful ordeal will have on humanity. If this is the reason one listens to this book, then it is truly and eye-opening account and worth every minute.

Thank you Audible for including it in your book list!