Just a factual point... JotPY is *not* journalism on the spot, it's historical fiction masquerading as a journalistic account. Defoe was only a child at the time of the plague (b. 1659), but his account is from the POV of an adult. It was written in the 1720s, more than 50 years after the plague, so it's like a 60ish author now writing about WW2 -- perhaps some vague recollections from childhood, but no first-hand knowledge of adult experience of the war itself.