Journal of the plague year

[gdt]

Daniel Defoe, 1772.

One of the first novels in English, and still one of the best. Tells the tale of the Bubonic Plague in London in 1665. Surprisingly modern, apart when discussing the origin and spread of the disease.

Defoe's arch style is to die for:

We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days to spread rumours and reports of things, and to improve them by the invention of men, as I have lived to see practised since.