A Journal of the Plague Year: Authoritative Text Backgrounds Contexts Criticism (Norton Critical Editions)

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, mesmerizing
Review: I liked the book. It was very factual and helped a great deal with research. It contains many accounts of the Plague.

Rating:
Summary: A Journal of the Plague Year : Authoritative Text Background
Review: I liked the book. It was very factual and helped a great deal with research. It contains many accounts of the Plague.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, mesmerizing
Review: Well, it's not really clear that Defoe used actual accounts, though he did draw on much discussion about the Great Plague. He was, after all, only five or six years old when it occured. But the narrative is utterly absorbing. Written by one of the greatest novelists of all time (he was Joyce's favorite English novelist), the narrative is vivid, moving, and sometimes hilarious. It is also remarkably contemporary. You meet quacks and prophets disturbingly similar to the no-nothings who dominate our own time. The descriptions of behavior, disease, fear, and denial are as fresh today, and as relevant, as they were when Defoe wrote the Journal. Don't miss it!

Rating:
Summary: An incredible account of the plague!
Review: What makes Dafoes account of the plague so compelling is the fact that the story is based on real accounts. He, Mr Dafoe, has accomplished the task of bringing a distant event that could be easily overlooked and created a yearning to know anout the conditions of London and the people whom resided there during the toll of the plague.