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About Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe
Born toward the of the summer of 1660, died on April 24, 1731
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original surname Foe, Defoe altered it in 1703

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English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist, author of ROBINSON CRUSOE. Along with Samuel Richardson, Defoe is considered the founder of the English novel. He produced some 200 works of nonfiction prose in addition to close 2 000 short essays in periodical publications, several of which he also edited.

Defoe was born as the son of James Foe, a butcher of Stroke Newington. He studied at Charles Morton's Academy, London. Although his Nonconformist father intended him for the ministry, Defoe plunged into politics and trade, travelling extensively in Europe. Throughout his life Defoe also wrote about merxchantile projects. In the early 1680s he was commission merchant in Cornhill but went bankrupt in 1691. In 1684 he married Mary Tuffley, they had two sons and five daughters. Defoe was involved in Monmouth rebellion in 1685 against James II. Later he became supporter of William II, joining his army in 1688, and gaining a mercenary reputation because change of allegiance.

From 1695 to 1699 he was accountant to the commissioners of the glass duty and the associated with a brick and tile works in Tilbury. The business failed in 1703.

In 1702 Defoe wrote his famous pamphlet THE SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS. Himself a Dissenter he mimicked the extreme attitudes of High Angligan Tories and pretented to argue for the extermination of all Dissenters. Nobody was amused, Defor was arrested in May 1703, but released in return for services as a pamphleter and intelligence agent to Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, and the Tories. While in prison Defoe wrote a mock ode, HYMN TO THE PILLORY (1703). When the Tories fell from power Defoe continued to carry out intelligence work for the Whig government.

In his own days Defoe was regarded as an unscrupulous, diabolical journalist. His most remarkable achievement during Queen Anne's reign was the periodical A Review of the Affairs of France, and of All Europe (1704-1713), which was published weekly and later three times a week and resembled modern newspapers. From 1716 to 1720 Defoe edited Mercurius Politicus, then the Manufacturer (1720), and the Director (1720-21). He was also contributor from 1715 to periodicals published by Nathaniel Mist.

Defoe achieved literary immortality when in April 1719 he published Robinson Crusoe, which was based partly on the memoirs of voyagers and castaways such as Alexander Selkirk. The account of a shipwrecked sailor was a comment both on the human need for society and the equally powerful impulse for solitude. By giving vivid reality to a theme with large mythic implications, the story have since fascinated generations of readers as well as authors like Joachim Heinrich Campen, Jules Verne, R.L. Stevenson, Johann Wyss (Der schweizerische Robinson), Michael Tournier (Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique), J.M. Coetzee (Foe), and other creators of Robinsonade stories.

During the remaining years, Defoe concentrated on books rather than pamphlets and at the age of 62 he published MOLL FLANDERS, A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR and COLONEL JACK. His last great work of fiction, ROXANA, appeared in 1724. In the 1720s Defoe had ceased to be politically controversial in his writings, and he produced several historical works, a guide book A TOUR THRO THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITTAIN (1724-27, 3 vols.), THE GREAT LAW OF SUBORDINATION CONSIDERED (1724), an examination of the treatment of servants, and THE COMPLETE ENGLISH TRADESMAN (1726).

Phenomenally industrious, Defoe produced in his last years also works involving the supernatural, THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE DEVIL (1726) and AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY AND REALITY OF APPARITIONS (1727). He died on 26 April, 1731, at his lodgings in Ropemaker's Alley, Moorfields.

Robinson Crusoe (1719) - based on the story of William Selkirk, who went to sea in 17904 under William Dampier and was put ashore at his own request on an uninhabited island in the Pasific, where he survived until his rescue in 1709 by Woodes Rogers. - Robinson Crusoe is a mariner who takes to the sea despite parental warnings. He suffers a number of misfortunes at the hands of Barbary pirates and the elements. Finally Crusoe is shipwrecked off South America. With salvaging needful things from the ship Crusoe manages to survive in the island and come to terms with his own spiritual listlessness. He stays in the island 28 years, two months and nineteen days. - Aided with his enterprising behaviour Crusoe adapts into his alien enviroment. After several lone years he sees a strange footprint in the sand - his horrified discovery leds to encounter with savages and their prisoners, one of whom manages to escape. Crusoe meets later the frightened native and christens him Man Friday. Finally they are rescued by an English ship bound to England. Robinson marries and promises before end of the novel to describe his adventures in Africa and China. - Sequels to the story, THE FARTHER ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE (1719), in which Crusoe revisits the island and loses Friday in an attack by savages, and THE SERIOUS REFLECTIONS... OF ROBINSON CRUSOE (1729), did not gain wide recognition.

For further reading: Defoe: Writer as Agent by Katherine Armstrong (1996); Defoe's Politics: Parliament, Power, Kingship. and Robinson Crusoe by Manuel Schonhorn (1991); "Robinson Crusoe:" Island Myths and the Novel by Michael Seidel (1991); Daniel Defoe: His Life by Paula R. Backscheider(1989); Daniel Defoe by John J, Richetti (1987); The Canoniation of Defoe by P.N. Furbank and WR. Owens (1988); Daniel Defoe: Ambition and Innovation by Paula R. Backscheider (1986); Realism, Myth, and History in Defoe's Fiction by E. Maximillian Novak (1983); Robinson Crusoe by Pat Rogers (1979); The Rise of Novel: Studies in Defoe, Rchardson, and Fielding by Ian Watt (1957) - See also: Jonathan Swift

Selected works:

AN ESSAY UPON PROJECTS, 1697
THE TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN, 1701
THE SHORTEST-WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS, 1702
THE FAMILY INSTRUCTOR, 1715
ROBINSON CRUSOE, 1719 - suom. - several screen adaptations, among the best The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, dir. by Luis Buñuel in 1953; also Robinson Crusoe and the Tiger (1969), Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964), Robinson Crusoeland (with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy - their last fim, a dispiriting mess)
MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER, 1720
CAPTAIN SINGLETON, 1720 - Kapteeni Singleton
MOLL FLANDERS, 1722 - suom. - Three part television drama in 1996, script by Andrew Daniel
A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR, 1722 - Ruttovuosi / Ruttovuoden päiväkirja
COLONEL JACK, 1722
ROXANA, 1724 - suom.
TOUR THROUGH THE WHOLE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN, 1724-26
THE COMPLETE ENGLISH TRADESMAN, 1725-27
THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE DEVIL, 1726
AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY AND REALITY OF APPARITIONS, 1727
THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS AND OTHER PAMPHLETS, 1927
A REVIEW OF THE AFFAIRS OF FRANCE, AND ALL EUROPE, 1938 (22 vols.)
SELECTED POETRY AND PROSE, 1968
SELECTED WRITINGS, 1975
'THE MANUFACTURER' (1719-1721); TOGETHER WITH RELATED ISSUES OF 'THE BRITISH MERCHANT' AND 'THE WEAVER', 1978
THE VERSATILE DEFOE, 1979

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