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Defoe
Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731), English novelist and journalist, whose work reflects his diverse experiences in many countries and in many walks of life.
Besides being a brilliant journalist, novelist, and social thinker, Defoe was a prolific author, producing more than 500 books, pamphlets, and tracts.
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Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731), English novelist and journalist, whose work reflects his diverse experiences in many countries and in many walks of life.
Besides being a brilliant journalist, novelist, and social thinker, Defoe was a prolific author, producing more than 500 books, pamphlets, and tracts.
Defoe was born in London about 1660, the son of a candle merchant named Foe.
Daniel added “De” to his name about 1700. He was educated for the Presbyterian ministry but decided in 1685 to go into business.
He became a hosiery merchant, and his business gave him frequent opportunities to travel throughout western Europe.
An opponent of the Roman Catholic King James II, in 1685 Defoe took an active part in the unsuccessful rebellion led by the Duke of Monmouth against the king.
In 1692 his business went into bankruptcy, but subsequently he acquired control of a tile and brick factory.
He obtained a government post in 1695 and the same year wrote An Essay upon Projects, a remarkably keen analysis of matters of public concern, such as the education of women.
Especially noteworthy among his writings during the next several years was the satiric poem The True-born Englishman (1701), an attack on beliefs in racial or national superiority, which was directed particularly toward those English people who resented the new king, William III, because he was Dutch.
The following year Defoe anonymously published a tract entitled The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, which satirized religious intolerance by pretending to share the prejudices of the Anglican church against Nonconformists.
In 1703, when it was found that Defoe had written the tract, he was arrested and given an indeterminate term in jail.
Robert Harley, the speaker of the House of Commons, secured his release in November 1703, probably on the condition that he agree to become a secret agent and public propagandist for the government.
During his imprisonment Defoe's business had been ruined, so he turned to journalism for his livelihood.
From 1704 to 1713 he issued a triweekly news journal entitled The Review, for which he did most of the writing.
Its opinions and interpretations were often independent, but generally, The Review leaned toward the government in power.
Defoe wrote strongly in favor of union with Scotland, and his duties as secret agent may have entailed other activities on behalf of union, which was achieved in 1707. In 1709 he wrote a History of the Union.
Defoe's first and most famous novel, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, appeared in 1719, when he was almost 60 years old. The book is commonly known as Robinson Crusoe.
A fictional tale of a shipwrecked sailor, it was based on the adventures of a seaman, Alexander Selkirk, who had been marooned on one of the Juan Fernández Islands off the coast of Chile.
The novel, full of detail about Crusoe's ingenious attempts to overcome the hardships of the island, has become one of the classics of children's literature.
More novels followed, including Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720), Captain Singleton (1720), and The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1722), the adventures of a London prostitute, which is regarded as one of the great English novels.
Among his other important writings are A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Colonel Jack (1722), Roxana (1724), A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-1727), A General History of the Pirates (1724-1728), and The Complete English Tradesman (1725-1727).
From Robinson Crusoe
By Daniel Defoe
It happen'd one Day about Noon going towards my Boat, I was exceedingly surpriz'd with the Print of a Man's naked Foot on the Shore, which was very plain to be seen in the Sand: I stood like one Thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an Apparition; I listen'd, I look'd round me, I could hear nothing, nor see any Thing;
I went up to a rising Ground to look farther; I went up the Shore and down the Shore, but it was all one, I could see no other Impression but that one, I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my Fancy; but there was no Room for that, for there was exactly the very Print of a Foot, Toes, Heel, and every Part of a Foot; how it came thither, I knew not, nor could in the least imagine.
But after innumerable fluttering Thoughts, like a Man perfectly confus'd and out of my self, I came Home to my Fortification, not feeling, as we say, the Ground I went on, but terrify'd to the last Degree, looking behind me at every two or three Steps, mistaking every Bush and Tree, and fancying every Stump at a Distance to be a Man; nor is it possible to describe how many various Shapes affrighted Imagination represented Things to me in, how many wild Ideas were found every Moment in my Fancy, and what strange unaccountable Whimsies came into my Thoughts by the Way.