Daniel Defoe
Author, Journalist (c. 1660–1731)
English
novelist, pamphleteer and journalist Daniel Defoe is best known for his novels
Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders.
Daniel Defoe:
Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 in London, England. He became a merchant and participated in several failing businesses, facing bankruptcy and aggressive creditors. He was also a prolific political pamphleteer which landed him in prison for slander. Late in life he turned his pen to fiction and wrote Robinson Crusoe, one of the most widely read and influential novels of all time. Defoe died in 1731.Early Life
Daniel Foe, born circa 1660, was the son of James Foe, a London
butcher. Daniel later changed his name to Daniel Defoe, wanting to sound more
gentlemanly.
Defoe graduated from an academy at Newington Green, run by the Reverend
Charles Morton. Not long after, in 1683, he went into business, having given up
an earlier intent on becoming a dissenting minister. He traveled often, selling
such goods as wine and wool, but was rarely out of debt. He went bankrupt in
1692 (paying his debts for nearly a decade thereafter), and by 1703, decided to
leave the business industry altogether.
Acclaimed Writer
Having always been interested in politics, Defoe published his first
literary piece, a political pamphlet, in 1683. He continued to write political
works, working as a journalist, until the early 1700s. Many of Defoe's works
during this period targeted support for King William III, also known as
"William Henry of Orange." Some of his most popular works include The
True-Born Englishman, which shed light on racial prejudice in England
following attacks on William for being a foreigner; and the Review, a
periodical that was published from 1704 to 1713, during the reign of Queen
Anne, King William II's successor. Political opponents of Defoe's repeatedly
had him imprisoned for his writing in 1713.
Defoe took a new literary path in 1719, around the age of 59, when he
published Robinson Crusoe, a fiction novel based on several short
essays that he had composed over the years. A handful of novels followed soon
after—often with rogues and criminals as lead characters—including Moll
Flanders, Colonel Jack, Captain Singleton, Journal of the
Plague Year and his last major fiction piece, Roxana (1724).
In the mid-1720s, Defoe returned to writing editorial pieces, focusing
on such subjects as morality, politics and the breakdown of social order in
England. Some of his later works include Everybody's Business is Nobody's
Business (1725); the nonfiction essay "Conjugal Lewdness: or,
Matrimonial Whoredom" (1727); and a follow-up piece to the "Conjugal
Lewdness" essay, entitled "A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of
the Marriage Bed."
Death and Legacy
Defoe died on April 24, 1731.
While little is known about Daniel Defoe's personal life—largely due to
a lack of documentation—Defoe is remembered today as a prolific journalist and
author, and has been lauded for his hundreds of fiction and nonfiction works,
from political pamphlets to other journalistic pieces, to fantasy-filled
novels. The characters that Defoe created in his fiction books have been
brought to life countless times over the years, in editorial works, as well as
stage and screen productions.
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