Daniel Defoe: A Journal of the Plague Year (E. Nutt, London 1722)
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) was an English merchant and spy, and also a prolific writer. He is best known for the novels Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722) but also wrote possibly in excess of 450 other works including political and topical pamphlets, poetry, history, advice on marital relations and even science fiction. A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) purports to be a first-person account of London’s 1665 outbreak of Bubonic Plague. Referred to as The Great Plague – killing up to 50% of London’s population – this was not the worst outbreak to hit the city, but was certainly the last. But all is not as it seems. Readers should be prepared for some uncomfortable home-truths and a bit of ranting about the UK Government’s Covid-19 statistics.
Requiring a paper copy of Journal of the Plague Year to refresh my memory for the Encyclopaedia Pandemica project – and copies of any pandemic-related book being scarcer than toilet paper owing to Covid-19 panic buying of both – I ended up with what I call a public-domain copy, in this case printed by Amazon. It’s nicely done, though much larger than a regular paperback – more like the size of a school textbook – and without any introduction or notes. Therein lies the problem. Do the maths: The plague year in question was 1665, when Defoe was five years old. Without any further information, it could be assumed that this is a genuine diary written at the time. Although published in 1722, the title page says “Never made publick before” suggesting this is a recently unearthed historical account. There is no author’s name except the initials H.F. at the very end which is thought to refer to Henry Foe – Daniel’s uncle – an East London tradesman who was there at the time and who Defoe probably used as a source. It was 60 years before the work was questioned as not being entirely kosher.
This has given literary scholars a lot to argue about over the years. Widely denounced as suspect because he can’t have been a first-hand witness, should the Journal be classified as historical non-fiction or an historical novel? Comparing Journal of the Plague Year with the accounts of 1665 by contemporary writers such as Pepys, Defoe’s rendering comes across as wider-ranging and better researched. That is because it draws on a wealth of other accounts and documents relating to this and other plagues – including the 430 B.C. outbreak in Athens - as well as whatever oral history Defoe would have heard growing up in the years following 1665. As important entries in the Encyclopaedia Pandemica, these sources will be getting their own blog post in due course.
So what we have here, then, is essentially a novel; a chronological account of unfolding events, beginning in September 1664 with news of infections from abroad. This immediately resonates with the news broadcasts of January 2020 informing us of a “new type of influenza” affecting China. As Defoe’s story unfolds, he embellishes his narrative with statistics, anecdotes plus excerpts from Lord Mayor’s proclamations, medical books and pamphlets giving advice on how to contain the contagion. Don’t be put off by it being written 300 years ago – told in straightforward, sometimes colloquial language, this is a fascinating and entertaining read which stands the test of time.
I like to think of the Journal as the earliest example of false document fiction, a literary device employed to add authenticity to a story – the literary predecessor of the found-footage movie genre exemplified by The Blair Witch Project. While fake or fictionalised journals became common in the 20th century (the Flashman novels spring immediately to mind, but there are hundreds of others), the only notable example prior to that is a fake autobiography of Davy Crockett, published shortly after his death in 1836 and which with its tall-tales of heroic exploits helped propel him to the status of American folk hero. That would make Defoe the founder of this genre.
The purpose of The Grand Bizarre’s Encyclopaedia Pandemica project is to compile an overview of pandemic-related media, particularly where there are parallels with the current Covid-19 outbreak and lessons we should have learned. Journal of the Plague Year, despite having been written 300 years ago, stands out as possibly the most harrowing account of an epidemic ever published. There is plenty we can relate to here – quarantine, empty streets, disrupted funerals, increased hygiene measures for nurses, Government proclamations banning public gatherings and closing theatres, limiting access to tippling houses and setting up the employment of “examiners” and “searchers” – the equivalent of today’s NHS Track-and-Trace. At the time the cause of the Plague was not known, and people were susceptible to misleading news and quack remedies. Donald Trump suggesting disinfectant injections and the early panic-buying of painkillers spring to mind.
A “Cavalier attitude” usually refers to a lack of proper concern. However, in London during the reign of Cavalier Charles II things were taken very seriously. At the discretion of the Secretary of State, plague houses were shut-up and had watchmen posted 24/7– who not only watched the house to make sure no one went in or out, but also were tasked with running errands for the householders (get me some toilet paper) - an idea for Boris Johnson’s government – think of all those redundant and furloughed workers who could have been employed as guards. Defoe tells many interesting stories of guards being avoided, bribed, beaten up, murdered or blown up with gunpowder so the occupants could get away.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”
Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)
Did you know that 65% of statistics are complete rubbish? I posed this to my 13-year-old daughter last week and was impressed with her handling of the inherent paradox. She has been taught well. Early on in Journal of the Plague Year the narrator becomes obsessed with statistics. This will resonate with those of us who have regularly sat through the 5.00pm Downing Street Covid-19 briefings. In Defoe’s England there was no centralised Government statistical office, but a weekly Bill of Mortality was published, compiled from parish registers. The narrator notices an increase in the number of burials starting in late 1664 but none recording the cause of death as plague; “all that could conceal their distempers, did it to prevent their neighbours shunning and refusing to converse with them; and also to prevent authority shutting up their houses”. The “searchers of the dead” who went about recording causes of death were generally untrained and open to bribery, recording the deaths as “spotted fever” or “consumption” for example, rather than plague. The narrator recognises that the number of deaths in excess of what would normally be expected are probably due to the plague. It took until May 1665 for the authorities to put their foot down, and enforce recoding plague as a cause of death.
Similar statistical shenanigans are evident in the official figures published by the UK Government, where the numbers are carefully selected and manipulated to give the best possible spin. The Government’s headline figure is for deaths confirmed with a positive test for Covid-19. This is the figure which is shared internationally for comparison with other countries. However, there is a much larger number of deaths where Covid-19 is mentioned on the death certificate without necessarily having a positive test. This figure, published a few weeks in arrears by the Office for National Statistics, was eventually included in small-print on the daily briefing slides and given its own slide on a weekly basis. A still greater number is the figure for excess deaths beyond what would be expected based on a 5-year rolling average. Not all of these are directly attributable to the virus but may be caused by knock-on effects as care priorities were directed elsewhere. You may also remember that at the beginning the figures only included deaths in hospitals, until the press highlighted the issue of care homes. Extrapolating from the most recent ONS figures available, the current Covid-19 death toll for the UK may be in excess of 62,000, rather than the 43,000 in the official figures. The official death toll of the 1665 plague was 68,596 but the narrator of the Journal acknowledges this was probably 100,000 out of a London population estimated at 400,000. Records from the time are incomplete owing to falsification, death of parish clerks, and sheer numbers meaning the deaths of the poor were often not recorded – their bodies just dumped in mass graves. Also many records were lost in Great Fire of 1666.
The overwhelming impression is of how little things have changed in 350 years, apart from the availability of vaccines and virus testing. The control measures used and the effects of the outbreak on people’s behaviour are all very familiar. As restrictions in the UK are starting to be relaxed and we are poised ready for the second peak in Covid-19 cases, one thing to bear in mind which is noted by the narrator of the Journal is that the most dangerous period of the plague outbreak was when people thought it was safe to go out again.
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