Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe (1660 [?] – April 24-26, 1731) was an English writer, journalist and spy, who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest practitioners of the novel and helped popularize the genre in England. In some texts he is even referred to as one of the founders, if not the founder, of the English novel. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote over five hundred books, pamphlets, and journals on various topics (including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural). He is also a pioneer of economic journalism.

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 (later vice-president of Harvard University).

After leaving school and deciding not to become a dissenting 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 (as well as civet cats to make perfume), 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, and it may have been at this time that he traded in wine to Cadiz, Porto, and Lisbon. 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 1696, he was operating a tile and brick factory in Tilbury, Essex.

In 1703 he 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 dissenters. He was prosecuted for seditious libel, sentenced to be pilloried, fined 200 marks, 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 until 1713, and was one of the most active political periodicals of its time; Defoe contributed a great deal of his time writing pamphlets, poems, and articles in support of Harley's Union Act of 1707.

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.

Daniel Defoe died on April 24 or 25, 1731 and was interred in Bunhill Fields, London.

Novels and other works

No fewer than 545 titles, ranging from satirical poems, political and religious pamphlets and volumes have been ascribed to Defoe. Defoe's famous novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), tells of a man's shipwreck on a desert island and his subsequent adventures. The author may have based his narrative on the true story of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk.

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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