Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe was born in London in 1660. His father James Foe – Daniel later added the “De” to his name to make it sound more distinguished – was a prosperous tallow chandler, who didn’t belong to the Church of England. Because of this Daniel, himself an ardent follower of Protestantism, couldn’t go to university. He gave up on his initial plan to become a Presbyterian minister and went into business as a general merchant. Before long he went bankrupt and accrued considerable debts that would accompany him for the rest of his life. In 1684, he married Mary Tuffley, the daughter of a rich merchant. She brought in a huge dowry and bore him eight children, six of whom survived. Defoe published several pamphlets calling for religious tolerance and social reforms. In 1702, he wrote a treatise attacking the Church of England, for which he was prosecuted and pilloried. According to legend, however, the common folk cheered and drank to his health, instead of hurling the customary abuses at him. In exchange for being released from prison, Defoe agreed to enlist as an intelligence agent for the English government. In the run-up to the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707, resulting in the single state of Great Britain, he traveled to Scotland to report on anti-Unionist activities and guarantee consent to the Union Act – a dangerous affair in the turbulent political atmosphere. Simultaneously, he worked as a journalist and, until 1713, published the newspaper The Review. At the ripe age of almost 60, he began writing novels. The first, Robinson Crusoe (1719) is his most famous, followed, among others, by Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720), Captain Singleton (1720), The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1722) and A Journal of the Plague Year (1722). Daniel Defoe died in London on April 26, 1731.