A Journal of the Plague Year is an account of one man's experiences of the year 1665 when the bubonic plague struck the city of London. It is presented as an eyewitness account of the events at the time, told in somewhat chronological order. Defoe goes to great pains to achieve an effect of verisimilitude, identifying specific neighborhoods, streets, and even houses in which events took place. He presents tables of casualty figures and discusses the credibility of various accounts and anecdotes received by the narrator.
Defoe was only five years old in 1665 when the Great Plague took place. The book was published under the initials H. F. and is likely based on the journals of Defoe's uncle, Henry Foe. Like the narrator of the book, Henry Foe was a saddler who lived in the Whitechapel district of East London. The book is often compared to the actual, contemporary accounts of the plague in the diary of Samuel Pepys. Defoe's account, which appears to include much research, is far more systematic and detailed than Pepys's first-person account.
Defoe, Daniel: - "Daniel Defoe (c. 1660 - 24 April 1731), born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, which is second only to the Bible in its number of translations. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel, and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson. Defoe wrote many political tracts and often was in trouble with the authorities, including a spell in prison. Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted with him. Defoe was a prolific and versatile writer, producing more than three hundred works-books, pamphlets, and journals-on diverse topics, including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology, and the supernatural. He was also a pioneer of business journalism and economic journalism. From 1719 to 1724, Defoe published the novels for which he is famous (see below). In the final decade of his life, he also wrote conduct manuals, including Religious Courtship (1722), The Complete English Tradesman (1726) and The New Family Instructor (1727). He published a number of books decrying the breakdown of the social order, such as The Great Law of Subordination Considered (1724) and Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business (1725) and works on the supernatural, like The Political History of the Devil (1726), A System of Magick (1727) and An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727). His works on foreign travel and trade include A General History of Discoveries and Improvements (1727) and Atlas Maritimus and Commercialis (1728). Perhaps his greatest achievement with the novels is the magisterial A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-27), which provided a panoramic survey of British trade on the eve of the Industrial Revolution."
