Year of Wonders

In 1665 the plague invaded England, particularly London. The people living in the small village of Eyam in Derbyshire were not particularly concerned until a case was discovered in their village. Cloth that had been brought to the village from London was affected with fleas carrying the plague.

Geraldine Brooks has set her novel, Years of Wonders, in Eyam during the years 1665 and 1666 when villagers were struggling to live in a world where they were cut off from the rest of the country until the plague subsided. Although the book is based on a true story, it is historical fiction and the author has created her own characters and events to tell her story.

Anna Frith, a widow with two sons, lives and works in the village - part of the time at the vicarage and part of the time at the big house. As the number of villagers affected with the plague increases, the decision is made to close the borders of the village placing the village in isolation from the rest of the country. This helped limit the spread of the diease in neighbouring areas but resulted in 260 deaths in the village over fourteen months. How the villagers coped with this situation is the focus of the novel.

The book is primarily about how different people cope and react in difficult and dangerous situations. It is about love and caring for others. It is also about fear and fanaticism. It is about the need to learn new ways to survive. Set in the seventeenth century the novel also looks at the struggle between religion and science to understand what was happening.

Years of Wonders was first published in 2002. The story of events in Eyam, historical and fictional, became all the more relevant with the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Great Plague of 1665-1666 - National Archives

Why is Eyam significant? - Historic UK 

Eyam recalls lessons from 1665 - The Guardian 15 March 2020