A Journal of the Plague Year

Daniel Defoe published this in 1722, presenting it as the firsthand memoir of a London saddler who stayed in the city through the Great Plague of 1665. The narrator, identified only as H. F., walks the reader down emptying streets, past shuttered houses marked with red crosses, mass burial pits, and the desperate measures people took to survive or flee. Defoe was only a small child during the actual outbreak, so the account blends parish records and bills of mortality with invented detail, which is why scholars still argue over whether to call it history or fiction. Either way, it remains a haunting portrait of a city besieged by disease. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available.