A Tale of the Great Plague. 1666 was a difficult year in London. With its sordid materialism and its coarse handling of things most sacred, not merely does Manning see, as an Englishwoman, the grandeur of its struggles, but she sees its best embodiment in the tragedy of an almost perfect life. In her description of the plague (much detail taken from the diarist, Pepys), followed by The Great Fire, Manning is taken out of her comfort zone to the sordid realities. Her answer is to take Mistress Cherry to a country house in Berkshire, where peace and tranquility are to be found. - Summary by Lynne Thompson