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DANIEL DEFOE

Daniel Defoe was an English novelist and political writer. He was born in 1660 or 1661 in London and died in 1731. His father, James Foe, carried on the trade of a butcher. In 1686 He joined the insurrection of the Duke of Monmouth, and had the good fortune to escape; after which he made several unsuccessful attempts at business, and at last turned bis attention to literature.

In 1701 appeared his satire in verse, The True-born Englishman, in favour of William III. As a zealous Whig and Dissenter he was frequently in trouble. For publishing The Shortest Way with the Dissenters in 1702, the drift of which was misunderstood by both Churchmen and Dissenters, he was pilloried and imprisoned in Newgate, obtaining bis liberty through the influence of Harley, who employed him in several important missions, particularly in the negotiations for the union with Scotland, of which he wrote the history. While in Newgate, in 1704, he commenced the Review, a literary and political periodical which lasted for nine years. In 1705 he wrote a short account of the Apparition of Mrs Veal, a fictitious narrative accompanying a translation of Drelincourt on Death. In 1706 he published his largest poem, entitled Jure Divino, a satire on the doctrine of divine right.

In 1707 he was in Scotland, which he also visited several times subsequently in connection with political affairs, and as an agent of those in power. In 1719 appeared the most popular of all his performances: The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, the favourable reception of which was immediate and universal. The success of Daniel Defoe in this performance induced him to write a number of other lives and adventures in character; as Moll Flanders, Captain Singleton, Roxana, Duncan Campbell, The Memoirs of a Cavalier, Journal of the Plague, etc.

After the accession of George I he was employed by government in some underhand work connected with the obnoxious Jacobite press, and was a prolific contributor to periodical and ephemeral literature.
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