Talk of the Town

The Great Mortality,an Intimate History of the Black Death

Thu. Apr. 28, 7:30 - 9:00 pm

With: John Kelly, Author and Journalist

From 1347 to 1350 a deadly disease called the Black Death claimed approximately 25 million lives in Europe, between one-third and one-half of the total population. In one of western civilization’s classic works of literature, The Decameron, Boccaccio described how centuries of rituals around burial and mourning were overwhelmed by the flood of bodies produced by the Black Death:

“It was the common practice of most of the neighbors, moved no less by fear of contamination by the putrefying bodies than by charity towards the deceased, to drag the corpses out of the houses with their own hands, aided, perhaps, by a porter, if a porter was to be had, and to lay them in front of the doors, where any one who made the round might have seen, especially in the morning, more of them than he could count; afterwards they would have biers brought up or in default, planks, whereon they laid them. Nor was it once twice only that one and the same bier carried two or three corpses at once; but quite a considerable number of such cases occurred, one bier sufficing for husband and wife, two or three brothers, father and son, and so forth. And times without number it happened, that as two priests, bearing the cross, were on their way to perform the last office for some one, three or four biers were brought up by the porters in rear of them, so that, whereas the priests supposed that they had but one corpse to bury, they discovered that there were six or eight, or sometimes more. Nor, for all their number, were their obsequies honored by either tears or lights or crowds of mourners rather, it was come to this, that a dead man was then of no more account than a dead goat would be to-day.”

From Boccaccio, The Decameron,. M. Rigg, trans. (London: David Campbell, 1921), Vol. 1, pp. 5-11
Boccaccio’s may have been one of the first accounts of the Black Death to appear between covers, but many others have followed it. The latest is a new book by science writer John Kelly. This is the publisher’s description of the book:

“The Great Mortality is John Kelly's compelling narrative account of the medieval plague, from its beginnings on the desolate, windswept steppes of Central Asia to its journey through the teeming cities of Europe. "This is the end of the world," wrote a bootblack of the pestilence's arrival in his native Siena. The Great Mortality paints a vivid picture of what the end of the world looked like, circa 1348 and 1349: bodies packed like "lasagna" in municipal plague pits, collection carts winding through the streets early in the morning to pick up the dead, desperate crowds crouched over municipal latrines inhaling noxious fumes in hopes of inoculating themselves against the plague, children abandoning infected parents -- and parents, infected children.

Interweaving a modern scientific methodical analysis with an evocative portrait of medieval medicine, superstition, and bigotry, The Great Mortality achieves an air of immediacy, authenticity, and intimacy never before seen in literature on the plague. Drawing on the latest research, it unwraps the mystery that shrouds the disease and offers a new and fascinating look into the complex forces that went into the making of the Black Death.”

Join us at Talk of the Town for a conversation with John Kelly about his intimate history of the Black Death.

The discussion will take place at UBC Robson Square. Attendance is free of charge, but please pre-register at info.talkofthetown@ubc.ca or phone 604.822.5675.

Reviews of The Great Mortality

"John Kelly gives the reader a ferocious, pictorial account of the horrific ravages of [The Black Death]." -- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Stunning. The Great Mortality [is endowed with] the sheer immediacy ancient history yields to only a few." -- Houston Chronicle

"It’s almost unethical to write a book on human cataclysm as entertaining as The Great Mortality. Strange that a book about the worst natural disaster in European history should be so full of life." This book may be written in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman but there is a seething vitality here that is Kelly’s alone." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune

"The Black Death is history’s best-known pandemic, but until now its full history has not been written. In The Great Mortality John Kelly gives a human face to the 14th century disaster that claimed 75 million lives, a third of the world’s population." -- Oakland Tribune

"There has never been a better researched, better written, or more engaging account of the epidemic. Superb and fascinating." -- Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa

"Powerful, rich, moving, humane, and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose." -- Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb and John James Audubon: The Making of an American

"Written with a keen eye for the details of the past, it might also be a warning about our future." -- Jack Weatherford, DeWitt Wallace Professor of Anthropology at Macalester College and author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

"Rich and evocative…written in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman, I couldn’t stop reading this work of brilliance and wisdom." -- Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone

Biography

John Kelly, who holds a graduate degree in European history, is the author and coauthor of ten books on science, medicine and human behaviour, including Three on the Edge, which Publishers Weekly called the work of “an expert storyteller.” He lives in New York City.

Selected Bibliography

The Great Mortality, An Intimate History of the Black Death, HarperCollins, 2005

Three on the Edge, Bantam Books, 1999

The Secret Life of the Unborn Child,Thomas Verny with John Kelly, Summit Books, 1981

Links & Readings

Links

Black Death

You can find the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia’s entry on the Black Death at this site.

Boccaccio’s Decameron

In the introduction to his masterwork The Decameron, Boccaccio wrote a compelling portrait of dreadful calamity.

Online Lecture

This site has an on-line lecture from a course on the Black Death by E.L. Skip Knox of Boise State University.

An Interactive Journey to the 14th Century

Discovery channel has a multi-media presentation on the Black Death.

The Middle Ages Online

You will find all kinds of information about the Middle Ages at this site, including a page on the Bubonic Plague.

Readings

The Black Death, Philip Ziegler, Collins, 1969

In the Wake of the Plague, Norman Cantor, Perennial, 2002