Official Review: The Dark Traveller by Cindy Wright

[mstrick96]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Dark Traveller: Exploring the Black Death in London and Eyam" by Cindy Wright.]

The Dark Traveller is a non-fictional account of the spread of the Bubonic Plague in England in the 1660’s, with a focus on the cities of London and Eyam. It gives an overview of the transmission of the disease and the people’s mostly ineffective attempts to deal with it. There are the seeds of stories of heroism and self-sacrifice as well as of greed and avarice as well as hints at the suffering and misery of the victims and their families.

An interesting section is a chapter of the recipes used and recommended for treating the plague. The description and accompanying illustration of the outfit worn by doctors treating the victims is especially fascinating.

There are mentions of several individuals who documented the events of the plague, including Henry Foe, father of Daniel Defoe who was the author of “Robinson Crusoe”. Also mentioned is Samuel Pepys, who is famous for the diary that he kept for 10 years that is one of the primary sources for the English Restoration period. Other, less well known chroniclers, are also mentioned.

The book was interesting and fairly informative, even though it is unsatisfyingly short at only around 7000 or 8000 words long (my estimate). It reads as if it is an early draft of a longer work before expansion and elaboration. It is more like a collection of note cards as they are being organized than a complete draft. To be completely fair, there is some elaboration so that it is not just a listing of facts, but I would like to see more “scene building”. To paraphrase a common writing rule of thumb, I would like more “showing” and less “telling”.

Another thing that I would have liked to see is the use of references or footnotes to identify the source material used. Most likely there was a lot taken from the diaries of the various chroniclers mentioned in the text, but this is never stated and there is no mention of other sources that might have been used. References and footnotes are important to me to help me perform additional research on interesting topics that are described in the text.
That was an informative document, but I would like to see it developed more fully.

I rate this book 2 out of 4.

Mike Strickland

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Buy "The Dark Traveller: Exploring the Black Death in London and Eyam" on Amazon

[Cee-Jay Aurinko]

I don't know anything about the Black Death, except that I heard about in movies and tee-vee. But if this book has nof ref listing, how can I trust anything it says?