Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Journal of the Plague Year
    A Journal of the Plague Year
    A Journal of the Plague Year
    Audiobook10 hours

    A Journal of the Plague Year

    Written by Daniel Defoe

    Narrated by Shea Taylor

    5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    “Another plague year would reconcile all these differences; a close conversing with death, or with diseases that threaten death, would scum off the gall from our tempers, remove the animosities among us, and bring us to see with differing eyes than those which we looked on things with before.”


    In 1665, London was struck by the bubonic plague, an epidemic that was the last major instance of the bubonic plague in England. This instance of the plague killed 100,000 people over a year and a half, and was transmitted through rats that ran through the city.


    A Journal of the Plague Year was presented as an eyewitness account of the epidemic through the eyes of Londoners, though Daniel DeFoe was only a child during the plague. This book was likely based on the journals and writings of his uncle, but is written with factual specificity and authority that place it among other contemporary accounts of the year. Whether it should be called fiction or nonfiction has been widely debated due to its astonishing amount of factual details, but its ultimate fictitious nature of the authorship.


    This journal, whether considered fact or fiction, remains relevant centuries later in a world experiencing similar events and casualties. The words within the journal echo the same sentiments as those experiencing the modern pandemic have felt and expressed. Delving into the observations of the past generations gives current readers a sense of shared suffering through the centuries, and may impart retroactive wisdom that is remarkably relevant for current times.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSpotify Audiobooks
    Release dateNov 17, 2020
    ISBN9781094254517
    Author

    Daniel Defoe

    Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), son of a London butcher, James Foe, took the pen name Defoe in 1703, the year he was pilloried and jailed for publishing a notorious attack on the religious hypocrisy and intolerance of the English political class. His imprisonment ruined his lucrative trade as a merchant but made him a popular figure with the public. Freed by the intervention of rising statesman Robert Harley, Defoe became a renowned journalist, but also a government spy. Robinson Crusoe, his first work of fiction, was published in his sixtieth year, but was soon followed by other lasting novels, including The Life and Adventures of Mr Duncan Campbell, Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year and Roxana.

    More audiobooks from Daniel Defoe

    Related to A Journal of the Plague Year

    Related audiobooks

    European History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      “Lord Have Merrcy On London”

      May 14, 2020

      “Lord Have Merrcy On London”
      8 min read

    • Article

      Alcohol Insanity:

      Oct 8, 2021

      Alcohol Insanity:
      7 min read

    • Article

      Your LETTERS

      Sep 11, 2020

      I was inspired to write in to you to encourage beginners to family history always, always, always to look at original documents. I have been looking back at my branch of the Dunn family in Bermondsey, who seemed to have the habit of calling their off

      6 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Jul 27, 2021

      Reviews
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Würzburg Witch Trials

      Jan 31, 2024

      The Würzburg Witch Trials
      3 min read

    • Article

      Your Letters

      Oct 13, 2023

      Your Letters
      5 min read

    • Article

      Books & co

      Aug 12, 2022

      by Lindsey Fitzharris Many of us have heard of Gillies, the innovative doctor who – beavering away in the secluded grounds of Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, Kent – revolutionised the surgery undertaken to restore the faces of servicemen horrifically

      5 min read

    • Article

      Saints, Relics And Processions

      Aug 13, 2022

      Saints, Relics And Processions
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Shadow Of Death Descends

      Jan 19, 2023

      The Shadow Of Death Descends
      5 min read

    • Article

      Going Into Lockdown

      Jan 19, 2023

      Going Into Lockdown
      5 min read

    • Article

      When Christmas Was Cancelled

      Dec 13, 2023

      When Christmas Was Cancelled
      3 min read

    • Article

      Killers In The House Of God

      Dec 23, 2020

      Killers In The House Of God
      7 min read

    • Article

      Your LETTERS

      Nov 13, 2020

      Your LETTERS
      5 min read

    • Article

      The (surprisingly) modern Middle Ages

      Sep 2, 2021

      In the middle of the 16th century, the historian John Foxe looked back at the great sweep of time since the birth of Christ, and decided that it could be sliced into three chunks. History, he suggested, began with the “primitive time”, when Christian

      9 min read

    • Article

      A Back In Time

      Apr 5, 2019

      A Back In Time
      4 min read

    • Article

      Death Without Ceremony

      May 5, 2020

      Death Without Ceremony
      6 min read

    • Article

      Dear Paul

      Mar 12, 2021

      We start this month’s edition of ‘Dear Paul’ with a challenge. Daniel (@DanielGenealogy) sent me a birth certificate he found, whilst researching for a friend, and it’s the mother’s name that’s the intriguing part: Julia Walsh, formerly Harrington, f

      10 min read

    • Article

      Dear Paul

      Nov 13, 2020

      This month we start with a genealogical challenge from Family Tree contributor Adele Emm. Adele’s grandma, who was born in 1898, began working in the weaving sheds when she was 12 and here, she met another lady who was to become a lifelong friend. Th

      8 min read

    • Article

      Tudor Rebellion

      Nov 24, 2022

      On Whit Monday 1549, William Underhill and William Seagar two respectable inhabitants of the little Devon village of Sampford Courtenay - got into an argument with their vicar at the parish church. They told him that they disliked the new Book of Com

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Curate At Christmas

      Nov 15, 2022

      A Curate At Christmas
      2 min read

    • Article

      Hear The Angels Sing

      Dec 13, 2023

      Hear The Angels Sing
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Choir Decided To Go Ahead With Rehearsal. Now Dozens Of Members Have COVID-19 And Two Are Dead

      Mar 30, 2020

      MOUNT VERNON, Wash. - With the coronavirus quickly spreading in Washington state in early March, leaders of the Skagit Valley Chorale debated whether to go ahead with weekly rehearsal. The virus was already killing people in the Seattle area, about a

      7 min read

    • Article

      Where There’s A Will…

      May 12, 2023

      Where There’s A Will…
      11 min read

    • Article

      The End of Witchcraft

      Jan 31, 2024

      The End of Witchcraft
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Journal of the Plague Year

    5/5

    13 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Very interesting. Defoe gives graphic and humane anecdotes as well as a general overview of the 1665 plague in London. Many issues are comparable with COVID, particularly the locking up of houses and the difficulties of counting the numbers of dead and infected accurately. Defoe's style does good things to the brain and is very well read in this recording. Also--anyone who knows modern London will be interested in the various locales and street names mentioned in Defoe's description.

      1 person found this helpful