A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe - is a book by Daniel Defoe, first published in March 1722. It is an account of one man's experiences of the year 1665, in which the bubonic plague struck the city of London in what became known as the Great Plague of London, the last epidemic of plague in that city. The book is told somewhat chronologically, though without sections or chapter headings, and with frequent digressions and repetitions.How the Journal is to be classified has been disputed. It was initially presented and read as a work of nonfiction, but by the 1780s the work's fictional status was accepted. Debate continued as to whether Defoe could be regarded as the work's author rather than merely its editor. Edward Wedlake Brayley wrote in 1835 that the Journal is "emphatically, not a fiction, not based on fiction... great injustice is done to [Defoe's] memory so to represent it." Brayley takes pains to compare Defoe's account with known bona fide accounts such as Loimologia by Dr. Nathaniel Hodges (1672), the diary of Samuel Pepys, and Thomas Vincent's God's Terrible Voice in the City by Plague and Fire (1667), as well as primary sources.