Albert Camus’ The Plague is a dark novel … but it’s also a hopeful novel focused on an outbreak of bubonic plague in the Algerian city of Oran in the 1940s.
While it’s one of my favorite books … I’m more in the mood these days for alternative forms of escapism, and the furthest I’ll go down a literary quarantine rabbit hole is Erik Larson’s nonfiction portrait of London during the Blitz, The Splendid and the Vile.
Still, the four editions of The Plague spanning the 1950s to the present on my bookshelf have been calling my name lately, so with rubber gloves and a homemade face mask by our side, let’s find some joy in the many designs of the book over the many decades.
1947, first edition
1948
1948
1957
1960
1962
1962
1965
1966
1968
1969
1971
1972
1972
1989
1993
2000
2002
2012
Current, by Helen Yentus