Plague Dystopias Volume Seven: Old Saint Paul's, A Tale of the Plague and the Fire

"Old St. Paul's … is a 'disaster story' worthy of Hollywood, where an all-star cast is introduced merely to be decimated by fire, flood, earthquake, shipwreck, alien invasion, or act of God. It is an apocalypse of biblical proportions, laced with love, intrigue, bravery, humour and horror."– Stephen Carver .........

“It is replete with incidents of the most varied, striking, and affecting character. These Mr. Ainsworth has turned to the account which every reader of his former works must have been prepared to expect. He has interwoven historical facts into a web of most pleasing fiction, thereby investing history herself with new attraction.”– The Observer ..........

"Two of the most appalling events in the history of London have been drawn into the work before us ... and treated in Mr. Ainsworth's usual graphic style. It argues in favour of the skill with which these scourges of the great city are treated, that several of the descriptive passages made us literally shudder."– The Atlas ..........

Equal parts dystopian fiction, historical fiction, love story, and religious allegory, William Harrison Ainsworth’s Old Saint Paul’s: A Tale of the Plague and the Fire conveys the story of the grocer Stephen Bloundel and his daughter during the time of the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. Events from the two tragedies are intermixed with the daughter’s pursuit of a man who has faked his identity—and who tricks her into sleeping with him—while the daughter is pursued by the grocer’s apprentice, Leonard Holt. But that is not all! Ainsworth finds inspiration for his story not only from Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, but also from the Book of Revelation. Indeed, the story begins with a sermon warning of Judgment Day, and Ainsworth employs a character aptly named Solomon Eagle to judge the sins of London (which Bloundel assumes brought forth the plague) from the top of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, much like the Biblical Ezekiel. Holt wanders the streets of London witnessing the destruction of civilization. Murder and robbery are rampant, as is the social decay of the citizens. It is a dark, dystopian scene indeed, with the sick killed by those who should help them, citizens celebrating death and the rampant destruction of the city, and religion adding to rather than abating the suffering. The pit filled with dying bodies is seen by critics as illustrating the suffering of humankind and also the cruelty.

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