8/13/2019 Early Life and Works

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Early Life and Works

The son of a London butcher, and educated at a Dissenters' academy, he was typical of the

new kind of man reaching prominence in England in the 18th cent.self-reliant, industrious,

possessing a strong notion of personal and moral responsibility. Although intended for the

Presbyterian ministry, he had by 1683 set himself up as a merchant dealing in many differentcommodities. In spite of his own considerable savings and his wife's dowry, Defoe went

bankrupt in 1692. Although he paid his creditors, he was never entirely free from debt again.

Defoe's first important publication was An Essay upon Projects(1698), but it was not until the

poem The True-born Englishman(1701), a defense of William III from his attackers, that he

received any real fame. An ill-timed satire early in Queen Anne's reign, The Shortest Way with

Dissenters(1702), an ironic defense of High Church animosity against nonconformists, resulted

in Defoe's being imprisoned. He was rescued by Robert Harley and subsequently served the

statesman as a political agent.

Defoe has been called the father of modern journalism; during his lifetime he was associated

with 26 periodicals. From 1704 to 1713 he published and wrote a Review,a miscellaneousjournal concerned with the affairs of Europe; this was an incredibly ambitious undertaking for

one man.

Sectionsin this article:

Defoe the NovelistHe was nearly sixty when he turned to writing novels. In 1719 he published his famous Life and

Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,followed by two less engrossing sequels.

Based in part on the experiences of Alexander Selkirk, Robinson Crusoedescribes the daily life

of a man marooned on a desert island. Although there are exciting episodes in the novelCrusoe rescuing his man Friday from cannibalsits main interest derives from the way in which

Crusoe overcomes the extraordinary difficulties of life on the island while preserving his human

integrity. Robinson Crusoeis considered by some critics to be the first true novel in English.

Defoe's great novels were not published under his name but as authentic memoirs, with the

intention of gulling his readers into thinking his fictions true. Two excellent examples of his

semihistorical recreations are the picaresque adventure Moll Flanders(1722), the story of a

London prostitute and thief, and an account of the 1665 great plague in London entitled A

Journal of the Plague Year(1722).

Defoe's writing is always straightforward and vivid, with an astonishing concern for

circumstantial detail. His other major works include Captain Singleton(1720), Colonel Jack(1722), Roxana(1724), and A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain(172427). In

1724 A General History of the Pyratesby a Captain Charles Johnson was published; it was not

until 200 years later that Defoe was discovered to be the true author of the work (see edition by

Manuel Schonhorn, 1972).

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