Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year

A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe.

The story, of plague in seventeenth-century Britain, begins like this: 

"It was about the Beginning of September 1664, that I, among the Rest of my Neighbours, heard in ordinary Discourse, that the Plague was return'd again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Roterdam, in the Year 1663, whether they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant among some Goods, which were brought home by their Turkey Fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus."

Then ... it came to England where it devastated the country, including London.  It wasn't until the Great Fire, in 1666, that plague was effectively managed in Britain's capital (when flames killed the rats ,and the fleas, which spread the pestilence).

Credits

Book cover image, courtesy Amazon.com