The Great Plague: A People's History

by Evelyn Lord

Overview

Focusing on Britain’s peasants, shopkeepers, and other commoners, this history of the deadly Black Plague is a “local account of the countrywide calamity” (The Times).
 
In this intimate history of the extraordinary Black Plague pandemic that swept through the British Isles in 1665, Evelyn Lord focuses on the plague’s effects on smaller towns, where every death was a singular blow affecting the entire community.
 
Lord’s fascinating reconstruction of life during plague times presents the personal experiences of a wide range of individuals, from historical notables Samuel Pepys and Isaac Newton to common folk who tilled the land and ran the shops. The Great Plague brings this dark era to vivid life—through stories of loss and survival from those who grieved, those who fled, and those who hid to await their fate.
 
Includes maps, photos, and illustrations

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300206203
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	08/11/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	396,264
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Evelyn Lord is Emeritus Fellow, Wolfson College, Cambridge.  Her previous books include The Hellfire Clubs and The Knights Templar in Britain. She lives in Cambridge, UK.

Table of Contents

Map of Distribution of Plague Victims, 1665-6 viii

Preface ix

1 The Black Horse of the Apocalypse and its Pale Rider 1

2 Fine Buildings and Bad Smells 10

3 Town and Gown 28

4 Impending Disaster 45

5 The Infected Summer 55

6 Falling Leaves and Sable Skies 67

7 A Rash of Red Crosses 82

8 A Harvest of Death 97

9 The Beginning of the End of the Pestilence 115

10 The Final Toll 128

Appendix 137

Abbreviations 142

Notes 143

Bibliography 157

Illustration Acknowledgements 164

Acknowledgements 165

Index 167

Editorial Reviews

Evelyn Lord gives a microscopic, local account of the countrywide calamity, basing it on the most laconic of witnesses.”—Lucy Hughes-Hallett, The Times

The Times - Lucy Hughes-Hallett

The Great Plague of 1665 is too often seen as a metropolitan disaster, even though it brought death and dislocation across much of southern and eastern England. This timely study of Cambridge provides a thorough and imaginative account of the crisis which the epidemic inflicted upon the town, describing the impact upon its society and the experiences of individual families. In doing so it makes a valuable addition to both the literature on the Great Plague and the history of the town.”—Stephen Porter, author of The Great Plague

“Rich in the sights and sounds and smells of a seventeenth-century city, this is an evocative portrait of a teeming social world shattered by epidemic disease. Evelyn Lord’s adroit and sensitive reconstruction of daily routines and the urban landscape cranks up the tension as plague advances steadily towards its victims. We follow people down winding streets and alleys and peer into homes, finding there pitiful scenes of the dead and the dying and the distressed. Lord’s tale is horrific yet ultimately uplifting as life crowds back into the spaces left by the grim reaper—panic and misery followed by hope and recovery.”—Malcolm Gaskill, author of Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy

From the Publisher