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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Disease, Death and Decay as Exemplified by Daniel Defoe's "A Journal of the Plague Year" (1722)

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The history of 17th-century London was strappingly marked by events connected with death on a massive scale: the plague of 1665, which took the toll of around 100,000 lives, and the great fire of 1666, which destroyed the homes of 70,000 inhabitants, causing death to an unknown number of Londoners, whose bodies had melted in the heat. This article attempts, primarily, to explore the images of, first, the fatal disease and, then, death and decay as presented in Daniel Defoe’s renowned account of the plague, alongside his narrative techniques he utilised in it to make his portrayals of people’s personal tragedies more vivid and credible to his readers decades later.