Deluge and disease: plague, the poetry of flooding, and the history of health inequalities in Andrew Marvell’s Hull

This article redresses a predominant focus on London among historians of health inequalities by turning to the port town Kingston upon Hull and offering first demographic analysis burial records from Hull’s ‘great plague’ 1637–38. The shows how social history plague intersects with flood metaphors poet, Andrew Marvell (1621–78) his father, Reverend (c.1584–1641). offers new understanding as an estuary poet immersed in floods, plagues, environmental hazards that were feature life London. It finds poorest householders over three times more likely die 1637–38 than merchants, argues these are reinforced Marvell’s metaphors, which liken Noah those financial means flee plague, while unjustly condemning perceived impieties poor.