Defoe deftly entangles the reader in a saga of an entire citys mortal combat with an enemy more powerful and inscrutable than any previously known. Written about the great London plague of 1665, the novel was in direct response to a fresh outbreak of the infection in Marseilles in 1720. While
Robinson Crusoe gave rise to a host of desert island tales,
A Journal of the Plague Year spawned decades of survival stories and the entire genre of historical fiction.
Circa l’autore
Daniel Defoe is an apt author for the first disaster novel, having survived numerous catastrophic events himself. This tradesman-turned-fiction-writer was twice bankrupt, worked as a secret agent (perhaps in payment for help getting out of prison), and spent three days in the pillory. Typical of Defoes resourceful spirit of survival, while in the stocks he composed a poem about his experience that so moved the local flower sellers that they festooned his pillory with roses. Scorned by upper-class writers for his popularity with the masses and his interest in trade, he was deeply concerned about social issues, ones that included the well-being of Londons poor and the education of women.
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