Overview

In the summer of 1855, the nation cast its eyes on the working-class port of Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia. A ship named the Benjamin Franklin had steamed in from the West Indies harbor of St. Thomas-where yellow fever had hopped from ship to ship that winter-and tied up at a dock for repairs. The ship unleashed the seeds of an epidemic on an unsuspecting population, and it didn't take long for the first victims of yellow fever to fall. In the 100 days from late June 1855 until the first frost quelled the mosquito population, residents of the two cities confronted an unknown and unseen airborne stalker that killed one of every three people. The Fever is the never-before-told story of the deadliest epidemic in American history. It's the story of a summer when the only things that mattered were life and death.

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"""As suspenseful as it is moving, Lon Wagner's The Fever gives veterans of our modern-day pandemic a historic and page-turning primer on another outbreak that took place a century and a half ago. Fans of Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders and Hampton Sides's In the Kingdom of Ice will find much to admire in the voices of ordinary people who took on so many challenges in the face of grave danger and almost certain death. A riveting, meticulously researched account.""-Beth Macy, author of Dopesick ""Lon Wagner's The Fever is a riveting account of the deadliest epidemic in American history: the Yellow Fever outbreak of 1855. His compelling narrative brings to life the extraordinary courage and compassion, as well as the stark challenges, faced by the residents of Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, [when confronted] with a disease that may have been up to 100 times deadlier than COVID-19. [This] is a story of resilience, generosity, and selflessness, as well as human frailty and fear, in the face of an unknown and relentless enemy. It is a gripping account honoring the indomitable human spirit and reminding us that the past is prologue.""-Ron Fricker, professor of statistics, author of Monitoring the Health of Populations by Tracking Disease Outbreaks: Saving Humanity from the Next Plague"

Author Information

Lon Wagner is a former journalist whose editors twice nominated his work for the Pulitzer Prize, including once for a fourteen-part series about the 1855 yellow fever epidemic. His other distinctions include multiple national feature writing awards, Virginia Press Association awards, and National Motorsports Writer of the Year. He graduated the University of Delaware with a degree in English and journalism and obtained a master's of science degree in applied linguistics from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He has three daughters and lives in Roanoke, Virginia, where he enjoys daily hikes in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

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