Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

1666

By: Rebecca Rideal
Narrated by: Billie Fulford-Brown
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

1666 was a watershed year for England. The outbreak of the Great Plague, the eruption of the second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London all struck the country in rapid succession and with devastating repercussions.

Shedding light on these dramatic events, historian Rebecca Rideal reveals an unprecedented period of terror and triumph. Based on original archival research and drawing on little-known sources, 1666: Plague, War and Hellfire takes listeners on a thrilling journey through a crucial turning point in English history, as seen through the eyes of an extraordinary cast of historical characters.

While the central events of this significant year were ones of devastation and defeat, 1666 also offers a glimpse of the incredible scientific and artistic progress being made at that time, from Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity to Robert Hooke's microscopic wonders. It was in this year that John Milton completed Paradise Lost, Frances Stewart posed for the now-iconic image of Britannia, and a young architect named Christopher Wren proposed a plan for a new London - a stone phoenix to rise from the charred ashes of the old city.

With flair and style, 1666 shows a city and a country on the cusp of modernity, and a series of events that forever altered the course of history.

Cover image: The Great Fire of 1666, detail of a coloured woodcut by Matthaus Merian the Younger, courtesy of Swiss Re Company Archives, SRCA 10.122.727.01.

©2016 Rebecca Rideal (P)2017 Audible, Ltd
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Great and Horrible News cover art
Democracy for Sale cover art
Against the Grain cover art
Admiral Collingwood: Nelson's Own Hero cover art
Britain Alone cover art
Legacy cover art
White Debt cover art
Culture and Imperialism cover art
Perilous Question cover art
The Pirate Coast cover art
The Alan Clark Diaries cover art
All In cover art
Blood River cover art
Killing England cover art
Famous People in History cover art
Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories cover art

What listeners say about 1666

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    132
  • 4 Stars
    87
  • 3 Stars
    29
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    126
  • 4 Stars
    76
  • 3 Stars
    22
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    5
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    124
  • 4 Stars
    68
  • 3 Stars
    31
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    4

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

informative, holds your interest throughout

very informative, crash course on the sequence of events during that time giving a detailed insight to the landscape, the individuals involved and the suffering of the people

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

fascinating insight to 1666

A brilliant read from start to finish. Narration was easy on the ears. Detailed and informative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fabulously Told, Humanising History

An entertaining and informative testimony of the age, explored largely through the point of views of those who lived through it. As a historian, I already knew a fair bit about the time, yet I found myself frequently listening to details I'd never known. It takes us on a journey into the streets - and often living rooms - of Londoners dealing with changing mores in the arts and science, as well as the honeymoon uncertainty of a restored monarch. Then war, plague, more war, fire and yet more war, alongside resilience, lessons learned and rebuilding. I felt like I knew the individuals personally as their stories interwove into the whole telling. No dry history this, but an engaging one doing its job of testifying to tumult that unfolded and the changes that resonate to this day.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Dramatic, personal, illuminating

A very interesting book, filled with personal and specific details which enable one to get a sense of 'what it was like' to live in 1666. This book is, however, very highly dependent on the diaries of Pepys and Spencer, making much of the text a retelling of their recollections rather than anything broader. As a result of the sources used (and, no doubt, the author's interest), this is not so much a history of 1666 in England as of 1666 in London specifically; the plague as it effected the rest of the country is mentioned only in passing and the economic and social effects of the war and fire outside of London are not discussed. This is disappointing. Nonetheless, this is a very interesting book to which I enjoyed listening, and one read well and intimately by Fullford-Brown. (I don't echo the criticism in other comments regarding her performance.)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great History

Brilliant and full of detail. So many facts about the time and so illuminating.

Recommended

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Evocative

This book was evocative of time and place with suitable quotation from contemporaries.

I found the narration very accomplished and appropriate conveyance for the content.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

love this book! it's so dense in detail I've listened 3 times and still hear new things. The Plague bit is really harrowing. Beautifully read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great listen

A very interesting listen about a significant period of history, gives a thorough understanding of what England was like in that period of time.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

London, England

1066, 1666 dates that most English schoolchildren remember - the Battle of Hastings and the Great Fire of London. This book puts the fire into context of the times: the continual wars with the Dutch, alliances and conflicts with other European neighbors, the plague and finally from the ashes the Phoenix of the new London of bricks and mortar, a skyline dominated by Wren’s St Paul’s and his other churches which are still part of the fabric of London.

The story is a bit dry to begin with but soon becomes an absorbing tale of naval battles, the mounting numbers of plague deaths and the the great fire that for four days was master of the great city with extracts of eye witness accounts of these events including the inimitable Samuel Pepys.

I am not sure that it should have been a woman narrator, but it did remind the listener that the author was a woman with a scholarly but woman’s point of view of this period.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

I can’t find fault

Very well read and even well written but I came away thinking, did I actually hear anything I didn’t already know? All the usual ground was covered with the same characters, but nothing new seemed to be deduced. Perhaps the ideal book for the casual history buff. I think the title is a little off as at least a third of the events occurred in 1665 but I doubt the author had much to do with that, on the whole a good listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful