A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)

Pretty much at every step we match the behaviour of people from 17th century to the point that makes you think that human society has only evolved superficially and underneath the obvious modernity of air travel, vaccines and instant communication is the same herd of clueless and lost apes. China even put padlocks on people's houses. Let's hope we don't also copy the great fire of London idea. ( )

A fascinating look at London in 1665, when the bubonic plague swept through the city. Reading it in New York City during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic was especially enlightening, as one can see so many similarities. Hoarding supplies, fleeing the cities for country homes, self-isolation, all of these things were happening in the London pandemic over 300 years ago. There is even the "double-peak" we hear so much about today, where cases start to go on the decline, quarantine restrictions are lifted so people start mingling again, and we see a second wave of infections, albeit not quite as high as the first.

Highly recommended, especially if you want to see how human behavior hasn't changed in the intervening three-and-a-half centuries. ( )

First published in March 1722. It is an account of one man's experiences of the year 1665, in which the bubonic plague struck the city of London in what became known as the Great Plague of London, the last epidemic of plague in that city. The book is told somewhat chronologically, though without sections or chapter headings, and with frequent digressions and repetitions.

Presented as an eyewitness account of the events at the time, it was written in the years just prior to the book's first publication in March 1722. Defoe was only five years old in 1665 when the Great Plague took place, and the book itself was published under the initials H. F. and is probably based on the journals of Defoe's uncle, Henry Foe, who, like 'H. F.', was a saddler who lived in the Whitechapel district of East London.

In the book, Defoe goes to great pains to achieve an effect of verisimilitude, identifying specific neighbourhoods, streets, and even houses in which events took place. Additionally, it provides tables of casualty figures and discusses the credibility of various accounts and anecdotes received by the narrator. ( )

We all learnt of the 1665 Black Death in school- "Bring out your dead"; plague pits, infected houses marked....but what was it LIKE living through it? What were the feelings, the responses, of the people?
This is an absolutely FASCINATING social document, visiting topics I'd never really pondered.
Daniel Defoe was only 5 at the time; he seems to have re-worked notes kept by his Uncle Henry Foe, who lived through it, unscathed, after ignoring advice and remaining in the city.
A recurrent theme is Defoe's conviction that the state policy of barricading an infected family (the healthy along with the dying)in their home, with a guard on the door, did no good at all. He tells of much dissimulation, so that the authorities shouldnt find out; of people fleeing (and spreading the disease far afield) for fear of being so confined.
Many who could escape did so...though patrols began preventing outsiders from entering the parish and possibly infecting them. Many were living rough in tents throughout that summer (it reached a crescendo in Aug/Sep).
Religion and sundry dire prognostications became more important. Defoe observes an eradication of usual religious differences as Dissenting ministers stepped into the breach to hold services for other sects (their own priests having died or fled.)
Terror and trauma naturally abound; suicides of those who realise the tell tale signs of the "distemper".
Defoe considers the govt to have done a pretty good job at ensuring constant food; at ensuring the burials were done promptly and at night. A lot of donations were received- though with the economy almost shot, there was much need of it.
And, with the realisation by the late autumn, that it was on the way out, an imprudent rush to resume normal living.

When youve read this, you realise more strongly than ever, that whatever covid is, it assuredly ISNT any kind of pandemic!! ( )

NA