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Rating: 
Summary: Very Well Illustrated, but Not the Definitive Work
Review: I first became aware of this book through the bibliography section of Norman Cantor's In the Wake of the Plague. He noted that the book was valuable mainly for its illustrations. After reading The Great Plague, I am inclined to agree. The subject of the book is the plague that infected London and the surrounding provinces from 1665-67. There are many illustrations throughout the book, some more or less related to the topic, but all interesting and most I have not seen before. Many are examples of contemporary art showing the different provinces or scenes of the epidemic itself. The book is well written for dry facts and numbers, but is not engaging as is, for example, the old Philip Ziegler book on the Black Death. The text is full of statistics, especially in its chapters on London and the Provinces. One, of course, cannot write about the epidemics without statistics on deaths, etc., but too much reliance on listing them for every province can be very tedious for the reader (a chart certainly would suffice and make it easier for the reader to compare affected areas). In the chapter on the provinces, each province is covered separately which also makes it arduous. I kept losing track of what was where and, with the lack of a map in this book, had problems visualizing where each area was as I have no knowledge of English geography. After chapters of the percentage of deaths, quarantining policies, etc., the final chapter The Plague in Perspective included some issues that I believe might have been covered more; the London fire of 1666 and its alleged role in ending the plague, the effect of the brown rat replacing the black rat, and the distinction of the rat flea and the human flea, to name a few. One part I found particularly interesting was Porter's explanation of the Bills of Mortality and how the causes of deaths were sometimes fudged so that trade and tourism would not be scared off if word of the first signs of epidemic got out. The author also includes the title page of London's 1665 Bills of Mortality from his collection on page 153. For those interested in this subject, The Great Plague is worth owning for the scores of pictures. The text, however is probably a good starting point but is not the definitive work on the Great Plague.
Rating:
Summary: Very Well Illustrated, but Not the Definitive Work
Review: I first became aware of this book through the bibliography section of Norman Cantor's In the Wake of the Plague. He noted that the book was valuable mainly for its illustrations. After reading The Great Plague, I am inclined to agree. The subject of the book is the plague that infected London and the surrounding provinces from 1665-67. There are many illustrations throughout the book, some more or less related to the topic, but all interesting and most I have not seen before. Many are examples of contemporary art showing the different provinces or scenes of the epidemic itself. The book is well written for dry facts and numbers, but is not engaging as is, for example, the old Philip Ziegler book on the Black Death. The text is full of statistics, especially in its chapters on London and the Provinces. One, of course, cannot write about the epidemics without statistics on deaths, etc., but too much reliance on listing them for every province can be very tedious for the reader (a chart certainly would suffice and make it easier for the reader to compare affected areas). In the chapter on the provinces, each province is covered separately which also makes it arduous. I kept losing track of what was where and, with the lack of a map in this book, had problems visualizing where each area was as I have no knowledge of English geography. After chapters of the percentage of deaths, quarantining policies, etc., the final chapter The Plague in Perspective included some issues that I believe might have been covered more; the London fire of 1666 and its alleged role in ending the plague, the effect of the brown rat replacing the black rat, and the distinction of the rat flea and the human flea, to name a few. One part I found particularly interesting was Porter's explanation of the Bills of Mortality and how the causes of deaths were sometimes fudged so that trade and tourism would not be scared off if word of the first signs of epidemic got out. The author also includes the title page of London's 1665 Bills of Mortality from his collection on page 153. For those interested in this subject, The Great Plague is worth owning for the scores of pictures. The text, however is probably a good starting point but is not the definitive work on the Great Plague.
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