An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

DEFOE, Daniel

1 entries
  • 10199

A journal of the plague year: Being observatrions or memorials, of the most remarkable occurrences, as well publick as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665. Written by a citizen who continued all the while in London. Never made publick before.

London: E. Nutt, 1722.

Though he may be most widely remembered as a novelist--especially for Robinson Crusoe, Defoe was an English trader, writer of non-fiction as well as fiction, journalist, pamphleteer and spy.  This book is an account of one man's experiences in 1665, the year in which the bubonic plague struck London. Published under the initials H.F., Daniel Defoe, who was only five years old in 1665, may have based it on the journals of his uncle, Henry Foe. "Whether the Journal can properly be regarded as a novel has been disputed.[1] It was initially read as a work of non-fiction,[2] but by the 1780s the work's fictional status was accepted. Debate continued as to whether Defoe could be regarded as the work's author rather than merely its editor.[2] One modern literary critic has asserted that 'the invented detail is... small and inessential', while Watson Nicholson – writing in 1919 – argued that the work can be regarded as 'authentic history'.[3] Other literary critics have argued that the work can indeed be regarded as a work of imaginative fiction, and thus can justifiably be described as a 'historical novel' (Wikipedia article on A Journal of the Plague Year, accessed 04-2018). Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › England (United Kingdom), INFECTIOUS DISEASE › VECTOR-BORNE DISEASES › Flea-Borne Diseases › Plague (transmitted by fleas from rats to humans), INFECTIOUS DISEASE › VECTOR-BORNE DISEASES › Flea-Borne Diseases › Plague (transmitted by fleas from rats to humans) › Plague, History of, LITERATURE / Philosophy & Medicine & Biology › Fiction