About this title: In this novel, set in 1665, when the plague was rampant in Europe, a group of Londoners leaves the city and takes refuge in Epsom Forest. Daniel Defoe used the novel as an opportunity to express his disagreement with the unpopular proposed policy of quarantining London. It is notable for its intensely realistic scenes of terror, suffering, and ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Dent
Date Published: 1977
ISBN-13:9780460002899ISBN:0460002899
Description: Hardcover, ex-library, with usual stamps and markings, in fair all round condition suitable as a study copy., 350grams, ISBN: 0460002899. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: J.M. Dent & Sons, London
Date Published: 1948
Description: Everyman's Library no. 289. A few pen markings. Hardback, Ex-Library, with usual stamps markings, in good all-round condition, no dust jacket, 295pages., 350grams, ISBN: read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Constable and Co Limited
Date Published: 1927
Description: Hardback, ex-library, with usual stamps and markings, in fair all round condition, suitable as a reading copy. Ships within 24 hours., 750grams, ISBN: read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: J.M. Dent & Sons, London
Date Published: 1908
Description: No dust jacket. Cover scuffed and worn. Library sticker on front cover. Loose binding. Hardback, ex-library, with usual stamps and markings, in fair all round condition., 400grams, ISBN: read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: J.M. Dent & Sons, London
Date Published: 1908
Description: No dust jacket. Cover scuffed and worn. Library sticker on front cover. Loose binding. Hardback, ex-library, with usual stamps and markings, in fair all round condition., 400grams, ISBN: read more
Binding: Cloth
Publisher: Dent. Everyman's Library London
Description: Good. No Jacket. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. No date but presumed 1920's. Red cloth cover shows wear and some tanning/fading at edges and spine. Corners very slightly bumped. Page edges heavily tanned. Internally, pages clean and tight. title page torn at side/hinge but still attached. read more
Edition: NEW ED
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC. Country = UNITED STATES
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780486419190ISBN:0486419193
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 192 pages. (192 pages) the classic 1722 account of the epidemic of bubonic plague that ravaged england nearly 60 years earlier. edition new ed (Paperback) read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: J.M. Dent & Sons
Date Published: 1963
Description: Hardback, ex-library, with usual stamps and markings, in good all round condition. Ships within 24 hours. Introduction by Aitken, G A, 400grams, ISBN: read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: New American Library
Date Published: 1960
Description: Fair. Good sound, tight copy. Pages fine but lightly tanned, internally neat and tidy. Cover has some chipped edges, some yellowing to the back cover and a visible patch on back cover where small price sticker was removed. First class daily dispatch from Devon.; 240 pages. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Penguin Classics, London
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780140437850ISBN:0140437851
Description: As New. Used paperback in very good condition. In 1665 the Great Plague swept through London, claiming nearly 100, 000 lives. In A Journal, written nearly sixty years later, Defoe vividly chronicled the progress of the epidemic. We follow his fictional narrator through a city transformed. With an introduction from Cynthia Wall. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Dover Publications
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780486419190ISBN:0486419193
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 8.32 by 5 inches. [allow 1-2 weeks transit to europe]. (00192 pages) lang=english accessory: no accessory (Paperback ) read more
"My first experience with Defoe, and for a class that's sort of out of my comfort zone (I rarely read anything older than 19th century, what can I say?). Admittedly, it was an interesting book to discuss in class, specifically in terms of the course's aims--talking about bodies, the cultural production of them, and how they are managed (particularly diseased ones, as in this text) by the state and other systems of power. However, reading the book itself was a real chore. The first 40-50 pages are quick-paced and fascinating, purportedly told as a non-fictional narrative by a 'survivor' of the London plague, and concerned with the onset of the plague and how people first reacted to it--then Defoe continues to talk about the ways in which people escaped the city, how the plague spread, and what officials did to maintain order. This was all good. Unfortunately, after the first third of the book, the rest of it seemed to be merely a re-telling of the first part. The same scenarios with different nameless people; mortality rates for this week and then that week; cries of woe and terror; families reacting in the exact way other families Defoe had already described had. Moreover, I had a lot of trouble connecting to anything in the book, because neither the narrator (the nameless, until the last page, H.F.) nor any of the people he described were well-drawn, or had any sort of interior in which to locate yourself. Not that reader-identification necessitates good storytelling, but I found myself completely detached as Defoe detailed, for about the 1000th time, the faceless, nameless mother hanging out of her window crying DEATH DEATH! Or the millionth time that we heard about how 'you could never tell who was infected!' By this point, I just wanted everyone to die so that the novel would be over. Moreover, though Defoe is thought to be one of the first writers with an eye toward the plight of the poor, I felt his attention to the poor of London to be fairly flawed, and on several occasions, he pulled a sort of Swiftian mandate out--at one point he says that he's glad the plague killed so many poor people off, because the city could no longer afford to have them around. It seemed that he was concerned with them, but only to a point--and at that point, they were simply a mass of vermin that don't deserve justice or respect. So I had an issue with hearing people in class go on and on about how great he was for being 'tolerant' of these masses.
In any case, worthwhile if you want to slog through it for the politics--perhaps not so much so if you're looking for an exciting read."
"This book was written in the early 1700s to give a fictionalized chronicle of the way in which a plague outbreak in the mid-1600s affected the people in London. It is timeless because it addresses the ways in which human behave when confronting a little-understood, highly contagious, and often fatal disease."
"Surely Geraldine Brooks read Defoe in the process of researching Year of Wonders. Defoe fights the urge to analyze the plague in terms of his religious beliefs and is left finally with only the powerful sense that he survived. Indeed, and we are grateful for that!"
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