Literature Of Contagion: When Writers Tell Stories Of Plagues, How Do They End?

Edgar Allan Poe ended his short story with “Darkness and Decay and the Red Death [holding] illimitable dominion over all.” Others, from Daniel Defoe to Mary Shelley to Jack London, leave only a few survivors behind. José Saramago and Albert Camus handle things more subtly but perhaps more painfully. Jill Lepore gives us a look. – The New Yorker