Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe (1660 [?] – April 24-26, 1731) was an English journalist, novelist and spy, who is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the [[novel]. Although there is some debate over whether Defoe can be rightly called the first novelist in England, he is almost certainly the first novelist to widely popularize the form. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote over five hundred volumes worth of journalism, essays, fiction, poetry, and correspondence. Famous for his wicked sense of irony (Defoe's penchant for satire got him trouble with the law on several occasions), Defoe remains popular and readable toda when many other authors of his time have faded away. Defoe wrote his fiction primarily to pay the bills, and the hurried quality of his writing is certainly visible even in some of his more accomplished novels. Nevertheless, Defoe is of great importance to literary history, not only for the exemplary mastery of his prose, but for his critical insight into the politics and society of 17th- and 18th-century England. Few writers were as closely integrated into the English political system as Defoe, who as a secret agent had risked his life for the crown on numerous occasions. Defoe offers us some of the most luminous commentary on the state of English politics and mores, and he does so in prose that is some of the liveliest of his times. Defoe has never fallen out of popularity among readers of English literature, and, by all accounts, he never will.

Biography

He was born Daniel Foe, probably in the parish of St. Giles Cripplegate, London. Both the date and the place of his birth are uncertain. His father, James Foe, though a member of the Butchers' Company, was a tallow chandler. Daniel later added the aristocratic sounding "De" to his name and on occasion claimed descent from the family of De Beau Faux. His parents were Presbyterian dissenters, and he was educated in a Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington run by Charles Morton. Morton would go on to become the vice-president of Harvard University, and he undoubtedly influenced the young Defoe with his commanding public oratory and his preference for the prose of John Bunyan.

After leaving school and deciding not to become a minister, Defoe entered the world of business as a general merchant, dealing at different times in hosiery, general woollen goods, and wine. Though his ambitions were great and he bought both a country estate and a ship, he was rarely free from debt. In 1684 Defoe married a woman by the name of Mary Tuffley. Their marriage was most likely a rough one with his recurring debts. They had eight children, six of whom survived. In 1685, he joined the ill-fated Monmouth Rebellion, after which he was forced to spend three years in exile. In 1692, Defoe was arrested for payments of £700 (and his cats were seized), though his total debts may have amounted to £17,000. His laments were loud, and he always defended unfortunate debtors, but there is evidence that his financial dealings were not always honest.

Following his release, he probably travelled in Europe and Scotland. By 1695 he was back in England, using the name "Defoe", and serving as a "commissioner of the glass duty", responsible for collecting the tax on bottles. In 1701, Defoe wrote one of his most succesful early pieces, The True-Born Englishman, a witty defense of King William of Orange, who had been criticized during his reign for his foreign-birth. The True-Born Englishman, still highly readable today, is considered one of the finest examples of Defoe's wry wit, as well as an eloquent critique of ethnic prejudice.

In 1703 Defoe published an ironic attack on the High Tories in form of a pamphlet entitled "The Shortest Way with Dissenters", in which he (comedically) argues for the extermination of all those who dissent from the Church of England. In the uproar that followed, Defoe was prosecuted for seditious libel, sentenced to be pilloried, fined 200 pounds, and detained at the Queen's pleasure. In despair, Defoe wrote to William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England, who was in the confidence of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, leading Minister and spymaster of the English Government. Harley brokered his release in exchange for Defoe's co-operation as an intelligence agent.

Within a week of his release from prison, Defoe witnessed the Great Storm of 1703, which raged from 26-27 November, the only true hurricane ever to have made it over the Atlantic Ocean to the British Isles at full strength. It caused severe damage to London and Bristol, uprooted millions of trees, and over 8,000 people lost their lives, mostly at sea. The event became the subject of Defoe's first book, The Storm (1704). In the same year he set up his periodical The Review, written almost entirely by himself. The Review ran without interruption, published thrice-weekly, until 1713, and was one of the most active periodicals of its time. Although Defoe originally began the periodical to assist Harley by publishing political propaganda, within a short time the Review to encompass articles on fashion, religion, society and the arts. Defoe's writings for the Review helped to set the standard for literary publications in 18th-century England, and, decades later, when Addison and Steele would establish the Tatler and Spectator, they would draw much of their inspiration directly from Defoe.

By September 1706 Harley ordered Defoe to Edinburgh as a secret agent, to do everything possible to help secure acquiescence of the Union Act. He was very conscious of the risk to himself. The political climate in Scotland was such that if Defoe had been found out he could have very well been killed; nonetheless, even as a secret agent, Defoe continued to write and publish prolifically. In particular, a sequence of letters written to Harley and others during his tenure as a spy have become popular reading amongst scholars and general readers alike. Furthermore, decades later, in 1726, Defoe would draw on many of his experiences as a well-traveled secret agent in his Tour Through The Whole Island of Great Britain.

For the next ten years Defoe continued to devote most of his time to writing for the Review and conducting missions on behalf of the government's secret service. In 1715 he published his lengthiest non-fiction work, the heavily didactic The Family Instructor, which, while somewhat popular in its day, strikes modern readers as far too instructional. It would not be unitl 1719, when Defoe turned to writing fiction, that his fortunes would dramatically changed. With the 1719 publication of Robinson Crusoe, Defoe was catapulted to the top of literary society. His novel, which has been a best-seller for hundreds of years, was radically original in its time. Drawing on his years of training as a journalist, Defoe wrote Crusoe in a plain, unadorned, immediately accessible style peppered with his characteristic irony and wit. The novel was still a relative new literary genre at the time of Crusoe's publication, and Robinson Crusoe is often credited with bringing the novelistic form into the mainstream of English literature.

Defoe based the story of Crusoe almost certainly off of the autobiography of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish seaman who had been marooned on a desert island for a number of years. While Defoe almost unquestionably utilized Selkirk as the basis for his story, he transformed the simple outline of the plot into a medium for high art and extraordinary humor. Crusoe's adventures on his desert island are drawn from equal parts reliable history and pure fantasy, and it is in the fantastical elements that Defoe's novel rises to its highest peak: by isolating poor Crusoe on his desert island, Defoe is able to delve deep into the mind of his character, producing scenes of lasting power and insight.

Following on the heels of his international success with Crusoe, Defoe set off on a flurry of more fiction writing. In 1722 alone he published three novels , including two which have become world classics: Moll Flanders, the story of a young woman's descent into moral depravity and her eventual redemption in America; and A Journal of the Plague Year, a fictionalised account (writing in chillingly realistic prose) of the year 1665, when the Great Plague swept London.

In 1724, Defoe ended his lengthy experiment in fiction by publishing Roxana, his final novel. Although his health was in decline he continued to write prolifically as a journalist, essayist, and general troublemaker until his death on April 24 or 25, 1731. He is buried in Bunhill Fields, London.

Quotations

• One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. (Robinson Crusoe)

• Wherever God erects a house of prayer the Devil always builds a chapel there; And 'twill be found, upon examination, the latter has the largest congregation. (The True-Born Englishman, 1701)

Bibliography

• Daniel Defoe, A General History of the Pyrates ISBN 0-486-40488-9 (Dover Publications, 1999) (on Libertatia, a pirate utopia)
• Daniel Defoe, The Storm ISBN 0-14-143992-0 Penguin Classics, 2005
• A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, 1724-27

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