# H.F. — A Journal of the Plague Year character guide

> H.F. in A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Unknown, thou, your, thee, Himself, mine, myself, thy, themselves, their, Our, our, ourselves

**First appearance:** 0001-a-journal-of-the-plague-year

## Snapshot

A London saddler who refuses to flee, he reads the weekly bills of mortality like a man watching a tide rise toward his own door.

## Who they are

H.F. is a tradesman of middling fortune who stays behind when neighbours scatter, recording the plague's creep from St. Giles's parish toward his own street near Aldgate. His stubborn curiosity and appetite for exact numbers—burials, bills, concealed deaths—pull him constantly toward the infected districts even as the city seals itself shut. His account matters because he is the eyes and conscience of the book: a witness who insists on counting what everyone else is trying to hide.

## In the story

### [A Journal of the Plague Year](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_journal_of_the_plague_year_se/chapters/a-journal-of-the-plague-year)

The narrator observes and recounts the behavior of the infected, the poor, and the fleeing citizens, providing moral and practical commentary.

### [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_journal_of_the_plague_year_se/chapters/endnotes)

The author of the journal lies buried in the ground mentioned, at his own desire, following his sister's burial there a few years before.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_journal_of_the_plague_year_se/characters/narrator
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_journal_of_the_plague_year_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_journal_of_the_plague_year_se/characters