A Journal of the Plague Year

Revised Edition

Daniel Defoe
Edited by Louis Landa and David Roberts

Oxford World's Classics

Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year is an extraordinary account of the devastation and human suffering inflicted on the city of London by the Great Plague of 1665 which continues to exert a powerful fascination.
The lively Introduction relates the Journal to Defoe's best-known work, Robinson Crusoe, and draws on recent research into the publishing environment of the first edition. It considers the portrayal of London, recreated by Defoe to the way it was before the Great Fire, and to its device of fiction masquerading as fact.
Comprehensive explanatory notes.
Medical note that explains the relationship between Defoe's medical knowledge and our own.
Complete topographical index enables the reader to track the Journal's complex references to London's streets, churches, alleyways, and prisons both before and after the Great Fire of 1666.
Map of Defoe's London.

A Journal of the Plague Year

Revised Edition

Daniel Defoe
Edited by Louis Landa and David Roberts

Description

Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year is an extraordinary account of the devastation and human suffering inflicted on the city of London by the Great Plague of 1665. Purporting to be an eye-witness, Defoe's fictional narrator recounts in vivid detail the rising death toll and the transformation of the city as its citizens flee and those who remain live in fear and despair. Above all it is the stories of appalling human suffering and grief that give Defoe's extraordinary fiction its compelling historical veracity. The lively Introduction relates the Journal to Defoe's best-known work, Robinson Crusoe, and draws on recent research into the publishing environment of the first edition. It considers the portrayal of London, depicted by Defoe as it was before the Great Fire, and to the book's device of fiction masquerading as fact. This edition also includes comprehensive explanatory notes, a map of Defoe's London, and a complete topographical index that enables the reader to track the Journal's complex references to London's streets, churches, alleyways, and prisons both before and after the Great Fire of 1666.

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A Journal of the Plague Year

Revised Edition

Daniel Defoe
Edited by Louis Landa and David Roberts

Oxford World's Classics

Author Information

Louis Landa was Professor of English Emeritus at Princeton University. David Roberts is Professor of English at Birmingham City University.

A Journal of the Plague Year

Revised Edition

Daniel Defoe
Edited by Louis Landa and David Roberts

Oxford World's Classics

From Our Blog

Daniel Defoe, Londoner

By David Roberts Defoe is often described as a realist. Ian Watt's seminal book, The Rise of the Novel, went so far as make his 'realism' a pre-condition for the development of the novel. But when it came to cities, and to London in particular, Defoe was often drawn to ghosts and shadows: to dreams of emptiness as much as crowds and the great business of daily life. As Edward Hopper found the essence of New York in stray people hunched over night-time drinks amid darkened streets, so the London of Defoe's writing often turns out to be an inversion of the place his readers knew, perhaps because he knew it better than anyone else.

Posted on April 26, 2013

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