Which author wrote "A Journal of the Plague Year"?

• A. Jonathan Swift
• B. James Joyce
• C. Daniel Defoe
• D. Thomas Hardy

Answer: (C)

Daniel Defoe authored A Journal of the Plague Year. This work is presented as a diary-like account of the 1665 plague in London, published in 1722, and is known for its careful, almost documentary realism—specific dates, scenes, and social details that give the sense of a firsthand record. Defoe’s ability to blend plausible testimony with narrative craft helps explain why this piece is often read as a quasi-nonfiction chronicle and a pioneering example of realist storytelling in early novels. The other writers listed are associated with very different kinds of literature—Swift with satirical critique, Joyce with modernist experimentation, and Hardy with late-Victorian realism and rural settings—so none of them wrote this plague-year journal.