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