{\b Daniel Defoe}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 1660

{\b Date of Death}.: 1731

{\b Works}.

English novelist. Defoe wrote over 500 essays, poems, political satires 
and other works, including a handbook of good manners, a guide-book to 
Britain and a history of England. His earlier works include; An Essay 
upon Projects (1697), The True-Born Englishman(1701), The Shortest 
Way With Dissenters (1702), Hymn to the Pillory (1703) and the True 
Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs Veal. Of the several claimants to 
the title of our first true novel, the strongest is The Life and Strange 
Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719). In this book Defoe 
created one of the most familiar and resonant myths of modern literature. 
This was followed up a few months later with The Farther Adventures of 
Robinson Crusoe. Seen as the climax to an immense productivity, in his 
last years Defoe produced a succession of major novels; Adventures of 
Captain Singleton (1720), Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720), A Journal of the 
Plague Year (1722), Memoirs of Captain George Carleton (1728), Moll 
Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724). 

{\b Featured Works}.

'Journal of the Plague Year', 'Robinson Crusoe'

{\b General Comment}.

Daniel Defoe was born in London and was the son of James Foe, a 
butcher by trade. In around 1695, he changed his name to Defoe. With a 
strong intention to enter the ministry, Defoe attended Morton's academy 
for Dissenters at Newington Green. However, he married Mary Tuffley in 
1683/4 and having travelled to Europe he established himself as a hosiery 
merchant in Cornhill. Politically active, he took part in Monmouth's 
rebellion and in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 joined the forces of 
William III.

Defoe was incarcerated on two separate occasions for his satires. A self 
professed Dissenter, Defoe was first imprisoned and fined for his ironic 
attack on dissent, The Shortest Way with Dissenters (1702). Between 
1703 and 1714 Defoe was employed as a secret agent, by the Tory 
politician Robert Harley. His second period of imprisonment followed the 
dissemination of anti-Jacobite pamphlets in 1712-13.

Defoe's influence on the evolution of the English novel should not be 
underestimated. His fast-moving, simple prose and his journalist's 
inquisitiveness and eye for detail give his work a freshness and appeal 
which belies its age.