A Journal of the Plague Year (Oxford World's Classics)

by Daniel Defoe (Author), David Roberts (Contributor), Louis Landa (Contributor)

• New

  Paperback
  2010

  $11.40

  'a Casement violently opened just over my Head, and a Woman gave three frightful Skreetches, and then cry'd, Oh! Death, Death, Death!' Purporting to be an eye-witness account, the Journal of the Plague Year is a record of the devastation wrought by the Great Plague of 1665 on the city of London. Defoe's fictional narrator, known only as 'H. F.', recounts in vivid detail the progress of the disease and the desperate attempts to contain it. He catalogues the rising death toll and the transformation of the city as its citizens flee and those who remain live in fear and despair. Above all it is the stories of appalling human suffering and grief that give Defoe's extraordinary fiction its compelling historical veracity. This revised edition includes comprehensive notes, a complete topographical index, and a new introduction to the greatest work of plague literature. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.44

  The shocking immediacy of Daniel Defoe's description of a plague-racked city makes it one of the most convincing accounts of the Great Plague of 1665 ever written.

• New

  Paperback
  1992

  $18.63

  The authoritative text has been fully annotated and makes available a perennially popular novel, one that has often been mistaken for an actual eyewitness account of the last great plague in England.
  
  Backgrounds encourages comparison of 1665 documents with those of the early 1720s, when England feared a new outbreak of the plague.
  
  Included are official government orders and newspaper accounts as well as writings by Defoe, John Graunt, the College of Physicians, and others.
  
  Contexts includes eight comparative pieces united by the theme of a community in crisis.
  
  From Thucydides to Boccaccio to modern accounts by Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, and Susan Sontag, this collection represents some of the most celebrated observers and critics in western civilization who have seen what plagues reveal about human nature.
  
  Criticism reprints seven of the best essays on the novel, including interpretations by Sir Walter Scott, Maximillian E. Novak, John J. Richetti, and John Bender, among others.
  
  A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.