Year of Wonders – A Novel of The Plague

In 1665, the intense young pastor of a plague-stricken Derbyshire village persuades his parish to quarantine itself from the outside world. This selfless decision leads to the deaths of two-thirds of the inhabitants but saves the surrounding towns, as it did in the case of the historical village that inspired the tale. The novel glitters with careful research into such arcana as seventeenth-century lead-mining, sheep-farming, and, of course, medicine, but its true strength is a deep imaginative engagement with how people are changed by catastrophe. Fear and despair fan the usual petty rivalries of village life into murderous hatreds, and the community fragments just when it should be pulling together. A rare few—including the narrator, a young widow who is a servant of the pastor—discover new strengths and abilities. When the epidemic is over, a year later, the survivors are too weary, damaged, and numb to rejoice.

Book type: Pre-loved Paperback.
Condition: Very good.
Cover image: For illustration purposes only.
Notes: This book looks almost like new. The cover has no visible wear. It has no missing or damaged pages, no creasing, no writing, notes or highlighting.