The great plague

"In the winter of 1664-65, a bitter cold descended on London in the days before Christmas. Above the city, an unusually bright comet traced an arc in the sky, exciting much comment and portending "horrible windes and tempests." And in the remote, squalid precinct of Saint Giles-in-the-Fields outside the city wall, Goodwoman Phillips was pronounced dead of the plague. Her house was locked up and the phrase "Lord Have Mercy On Us" was painted on the door in red. By the following Christmas, the pathogen that had felled Goodwoman Phillips would kill nearly 100,000 people living in and around London - almost a third of those who did not flee. This plague had a devastating effect on the city's economy and social fabric, as well as on those who lived through it.

Yet somehow the city and its residents continued to function and carry on the activities of daily life."

"In The Great Plague, historian A. Lloyd Moote and microbiologist Dorothy C. Moote provide an engrossing and deeply informed account of the cataclysmic plague year. To portray life and death in and around London, the authors focus on the experiences of nine individuals - among them an apothecary serving a poor suburb, the rector of the city's wealthiest parish, a successful silk merchant who was also a city alderman, a country gentleman, and the famous diarist Samuel Pepys.

With these people's letters and diaries, the Mootes support fresh interpretations of key issues in the history of the Great Plague: how different communities understood and experienced the disease; the reactions of medical, religious, and governmental bodies; how the social order held together; the economic and moral dilemmas people faced when debating whether to flee the city; and the nature of the material, social, and spiritual resources sustaining those who remained."--Jacket.