The historical back drop for William Harrison Ainsworth’s 1847 novel Old Saint Paul’s: a tale of the plague and the fire includes two events that occurred during the years 1665 and 1666 in London—the Great Plague, which broke out in 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666, which effectively ended the plague but also destroyed much of the city. During the plague many of the victims, especially among the poor, were buried in communal “plague pits” like the one pictured here in an illustration by John Franklin in volume 2 of the 1847 edition of Ainsworth’s novel. (Source: Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics [Harvard University Library Open Collections Program])
See also "The history of the great plague in London in the year 1665, containing observations and memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, both public and private, during that dreadful period (1832)" digitized by the University of California Libraries.
