The Plague in Western Literature

The earliest mention occurs in Homer's "The Iliad", ascribed to 8th Century B.C. At the beginning of the book, the enraged god Apollo reputedly sent down his arrows, winged with pestilence, which struck down the Greek army camp, the plague raging for nine days. After suitably appeasing Apollo, the plague subsided.

The second mention is in Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War", composed in the 4th Century B.C. In the  Book 2, chapter 4 of this volume, the historian gives an explicit description of the scourge, which struck the Athenians just before their war with the Spartans.

The third mention, though not of the disease itself, but of the offshoot of events leading from it, is in Boccaccio's "The Decameron",(14th Century) a collection of 100 stories narrated by a group of 7 young women & 3 young men, who leave Florence, where the plague was raging, to a secluded villa outside the city, to amuse themselves.

Though the 17th Century Diarist Samuel Pepys was an eye-witness & wrote about the London Plague, his account is eclipsed by the later reconstructed fictional account of Daniel Defoe, called "A Journal of the Plague Year." Defoe was a child & taken out of the city, but he later reconstructed a rivetting story out of the events.

Albert Camus' "The Plague" (1947) recounts the events in the French Algerian town of Oran, from the point of view of a man who was visiting the town & was quarantined there.