Daniel Defoe 
A Journal of the Plague Year 
Being Observations or Memorials of the Most Remarkable Occurrences, as well Public as Private, which happened in London during the last Great Visitation In 1665

This novel is a fictionalized account of one man’s experiences of the year 1665, in which the Great Plague struck the city of London. Although it purports to have been written only a few years after the event, it actually was written in the years just prior to the book’s first publication in March 1722. Defoe was only five years old in 1665, and the book itself was published under the initials ’H. F.’ The novel probably was based on the journals of Defoe’s uncle, Henry Foe.