This edited collection features fourteen newly commissioned articles, each of which responds to the theme of plague from different disciplinary perspectives. Contributors focus on the impact of COVID-19 on everyday life but also draw on insights from different historical experiences of plague as a way of exploring human responses to epidemics, past and present. Each chapter opens with a different illustration that serves as a source for subsequent discussion, enabling readers to make connections between everyday objects, experiences, and broader critical debates about plague and its impact on humanity. Thought-provoking commentaries stem from a variety of humanities disciplines including archaeology, electronic literature, history, linguistics, media and cultural studies, and musicology and the book is divided into four sections: Rituals and Rites,Rites and Behaviours; Plague in History; Covid-19 - texts and discourse; Creative Responses to Plague. As a collection, Encountering the Plague explores ways in which humanities research can play a meaningful role in key social and political debates,and provides compelling examples of how the past can inform our understanding of the present.