A Journal of the Plague Year

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The Great Plague of London instilled terror in the residents of London; a mysterious unseen enemy striking down a hundred thousand, no less than one in five citizens. Defoe goes to great pains to achieve an effect of verisimilitude, identifying specific neighbourhoods, streets, and even houses in which events took place. He provides tables of casualty figures and discusses the credibility of various accounts and anecdotes received by the narrator. In fact, A Journal of the Plague Year is often compared to the actual, contemporary accounts in the diary of Samuel Pepys. Defoe’s account is far more systematic and detailed than Pepys’s first-person account. All in all, A Journal of the Plague Year is a gripping realistic narrative.