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y separately published work icon Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague single work   novel   historical fiction  
Issue Details: First known date: 2001... 2001 Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

This historical novel is based on the true story of Eyam, the 'Plague Village,' in the rugged mountain spine of England. In 1666, a tainted bolt of cloth from London carries bubonic infection to this isolated settlement of shepherds and lead miners. A visionary young preacher convinces the villagers to seal themselves off in a deadly quarantine to prevent the spread of disease. The story is told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old Anna Frith, the vicar's maid, as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. As the death toll rises and people turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna emerges as an unlikely and courageous heroine in the village's desperate fight to save itself. (Source: Trove)

Notes

  • Selected for the 2003 Books Alive promotion.
  • Dedication: For Tony. Without you, I never would have gone there.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Fourth Estate ,       2001 .
      image of person or book cover 6487253406812331842.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 320p.
      ISBN: 1841154571
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,      :       Viking ,       2001 .
      image of person or book cover 3951054372392531154.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 320p.
      ISBN: 067091021X
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Fourth Estate ,       2002 .
      image of person or book cover 4087169797594319485.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 321p.
      Note/s:
      • Includes a readers guide, pp.313-321.
      ISBN: 184115458X
Alternative title: Undrenes år
Language: Norwegian
    • Oslo,
      c
      Norway,
      c
      Scandinavia, Western Europe, Europe,      :       J. W. Cappelens Forlag ,       2001 .
      image of person or book cover 2635936810005795732.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 268p.
      ISBN: 8202191688, 8202197910
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording and large print.
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Related Works

form Year of Wonders Pip Karmel , 2004-2009 single work film/TV
VIEW ALL RELATED WORKS (1)

Works about this Work

Quarantine Then and Now : Reflections on Year of Wonders and COVID-19 Simon C Estok , 2022 single work criticism
— Appears in: ANQ , vol. 35 no. 4 2022; (p. 371-378)

'In her Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague (2001), Geraldine Brooks offers important insights on quarantine, of which the COVID-19 generation desperately needs lessons. There is very little about COVID-19 that is unprecedented, and Brooks shows consonances between COVID-19 experiences on the one hand and events that happened three and a half centuries ago on the other. These are things that could as easily have happened this week as I write, things that demand recognition or risk repetition. As with much quarantine literature, one of the things Year of Wonders reveals is that there is little about the COVID-19 pandemic that is new, with the exception of its truly global nature. The 2020 fascination with the seemingly unprecedented nature of COVID-19 produced misleading and untrue evaluations of our historical experience with viruses. Indeed, a great deal of what the world is facing during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is well within our repertoire of experiences. Despite the fact that quarantine is something that humanity has experienced many times, even before having firm understandings of the microbial mechanisms that underpin the transmission of viruses, quarantine was a part of these experiences, and resistance to quarantine has seemed as predictable as sunrises.'(Publication abstract)
y separately published work icon Arthur Miller's The Crucible and Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders Virginia Lee , Cheltenham : Insight Publications , 2016 10102276 2016 single work criticism
Find the Cherry on Top of VCE Texts Jane Sullivan , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 14 April 2012; (p. 32) Jane Sullivan reports on three online commentaries dealing with Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague. Sullivan notes the use of these commentaries for VCE students studying the novel as a set text in secondary school.
Magwitch Madness : Archive Fever and the Teaching of Australian Literature in Subject English Larissa McLean-Davies , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian Literature : From Classroom Conversations to National Imaginings 2011; (p. 129-152) '...Magwitch madness...has been inspired by Derrida's notion of 'archive fever' - the 'compulsive, repetitive and nostalgic desire for the archive, an irrepressible desire to return to the origin' (Derrida, 1998, p. 9). Like the convict Magwitch in Charles Dickens's novel, who is relocated to Australia, but remains imaginatively and materially linked to the centre of the Empire through his patronage of the boy Philip Pirrip (Pip), contemporary manifestations of Magwitch madness, whether they be in curriculum documents, media debates, text selection or pedagogical practices, are distinguished by a nostalgia for classic texts...and metaphorical and virtual proximity to the cultural capital that these classic works represent. ...

In this chapter, I will examine some contemporary manifestation of Magwitch madness in Some Australasian texts set for study in senior English. Thorough this analysis, I will pursue the connection between these texts and a more systemic manifestation of this condition in the recent debate around the teaching of Australian literature and in the Australian Curriculum: English. In the final section of this chapter, I will explore the implications of Magwitch madness for classroom practice, by drawing on data collected in four diverse Victorian secondary schools in 2010 as part of the project National Stories: Teaching Australian Literature in Secondary English. Through the examination of these various and inter-connected expressions of antipodean archive fever in text, curriculum and practice, this chapter will map some of the complexities and challenges of teaching Australian literature in twenty-first century classrooms.' (From author's introduction, 130, 131-132)
y separately published work icon Year of Wonders : Geraldine Brooks Kay Perry , Carlton South : NEAP , 2009 8197095 2009 single work criticism
Back in a Hotspot Rosemary Sorensen , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 15 February 2003; (p. 7)
— Review of Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague Geraldine Brooks , 2001 single work novel
Pertinent Story Blythe Seinor , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Dotlit : The Online Journal of Creative Writing , August vol. 4 no. 1 2003;
— Review of Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague Geraldine Brooks , 2001 single work novel
Swept Along at a Fever Pitch Stella Clarke , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 25-26 August 2001; (p. 8)
— Review of Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague Geraldine Brooks , 2001 single work novel
Servant's View of Pestilential Era Kate O'Mara , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 25-26 August 2001; (p. 4)
— Review of Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague Geraldine Brooks , 2001 single work novel
Bubonic Women James Bradley , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 4 September vol. 119 no. 6290 2001; (p. 70-71)
— Review of Year of Wonders : A Novel of the Plague Geraldine Brooks , 2001 single work novel
Catch to $5 Cheapie For Bookbuyers Rosemary Sorensen , 2003 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 22 March 2003; (p. 7)
Relying on the Kindness of Strangers Susan Wyndham , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 30 April-1 May 2005; (p. 20) A column canvassing current literary news.
A Sense of Discarded Gifts Carmen Callil , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , February vol. 3 no. 1 2008; (p. 3-5)
Hearing Voices Geraldine Brooks , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Griffith Review , Summer no. 26 2009; The Sydney Morning Herald , 21-22 November 2009; (p. 12-13) Geraldine Brooks reveals: 'I get many of my best ideas in graveyards. The idea for my very first novel - the story that tipped me off the ledge of factual journalism into the free fall of fiction - came from my habit of communing with the dead'. Brooks goes on to discuss the gravestone inscription in the village of Eyam that gave rise to her award-winning novel Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague.
Magwitch Madness : Archive Fever and the Teaching of Australian Literature in Subject English Larissa McLean-Davies , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian Literature : From Classroom Conversations to National Imaginings 2011; (p. 129-152) '...Magwitch madness...has been inspired by Derrida's notion of 'archive fever' - the 'compulsive, repetitive and nostalgic desire for the archive, an irrepressible desire to return to the origin' (Derrida, 1998, p. 9). Like the convict Magwitch in Charles Dickens's novel, who is relocated to Australia, but remains imaginatively and materially linked to the centre of the Empire through his patronage of the boy Philip Pirrip (Pip), contemporary manifestations of Magwitch madness, whether they be in curriculum documents, media debates, text selection or pedagogical practices, are distinguished by a nostalgia for classic texts...and metaphorical and virtual proximity to the cultural capital that these classic works represent. ...

In this chapter, I will examine some contemporary manifestation of Magwitch madness in Some Australasian texts set for study in senior English. Thorough this analysis, I will pursue the connection between these texts and a more systemic manifestation of this condition in the recent debate around the teaching of Australian literature and in the Australian Curriculum: English. In the final section of this chapter, I will explore the implications of Magwitch madness for classroom practice, by drawing on data collected in four diverse Victorian secondary schools in 2010 as part of the project National Stories: Teaching Australian Literature in Secondary English. Through the examination of these various and inter-connected expressions of antipodean archive fever in text, curriculum and practice, this chapter will map some of the complexities and challenges of teaching Australian literature in twenty-first century classrooms.' (From author's introduction, 130, 131-132)
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (24)

Awards

VIEW ALL AWARDS (2)
Last amended 6 Jul 2021 14:32:20
Subjects:
  • 1665-1666
Settings:
  • Eyam, Derbyshire,
    c
    England,
    c
    c
    United Kingdom (UK),
    c
    Western Europe, Europe,
  • c
    Algeria,
    c
    North Africa, Africa,
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