The Journal of the Plague Year

London, 1665

By: Daniel Defoe

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

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

Critic reviews

"...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

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.

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.

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.

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!

Many penetrating insights by Defoe make for fascinating listening.

I gained a much better understanding of the conditions that people of London endured during the mid 1660's. Defoe describes what was done by authorities (whether helpful or not) to contain the disease, its spread to other neighborhoods and towns, the effects on the different classes and efforts to help those in need, as well as actions (both legal and otherwise) of residents to escape both the disease and the resulting loss of freedom if you and yours were suspected of being so afflicted. Defoe's study, it is said, was the first historical novel, and was derived at least in part from a journal kept by an adult who lived through the Great Plague. Defoe himself was a small boy during the terrible year, but the terror of that year was so great that it remained in survivors for the rest of their lives. Defoe acts as an enlightened scientist would, in his vigorous effort to understand and convey ways to prevent or at least contain another plague, should one come --Fortunately, this great plague was the last scourge of its kind. Still, it brought to mind the fact that new and deadly strains of influenza could bring comparable suffering internationally in modern times--And indeed, already has, especially after World War I.

Yet I Alive!

This narrator did a really wonderful job of voicing H.F. He really sounded much like one might imagine the character looking and made a VERY dry book much more engaging. It is a long book, but truly feels like the author must have been hanging around London or New York in 2020!

2020 Vibes

Listening to this during the pandemic is eerie. Turns out, people don’t change.
A good listen, but the audio itself is a little dated, and you can definitely tell.