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| Birth Name(s) : Daniel Defoe |
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Full Daniel Defoe Biography
Daniel Defoe (1659/1661 – April 24 , 1731) was a British 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 Britain. 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 was also a pioneer of economic journalism.
Daniel Foe was probably born in the parish of St. Giles Cripplegate, London. (Daniel later added the aristocratic sounding "De" to his name and on occasion claimed descent from the family of De Beau Faux.) Both the date and the place of his birth are uncertain with sources often giving dates of 1659 or 1661. His father, James Foe, though a member of the Butchers' Company, was a tallow chandler. In Daniel's early life he experienced first-hand some of the most unusual occurrences in English history: In 1664, when Defoe was probably about four years old, a Dutch fleet sailed up the River Thames and attacked London. In 1665 70,000 were killed by the plague. On top of all these catastrophes, the Great Fire of London (1666) hit Defoe's neighborhood hard, leaving only his and two other homes standing in the area. All of this happened before Defoe was around seven years old, and by the age of about twelve, Defoe's mother had died. Both of 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).
Defoe's pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on July 31, 1703, principally on account of a pamphlet entitled "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters", in which he ruthlessly satirised the High church Tories, purporting to argue for the extermination of dissenters. However, according to legend, the publication of his poem Hymn to the Pillory caused his audience at the pillory to throw flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects, and to drink to his health. The historicity of this story, however, is questioned by most scholars, although the scholar J. R. Moore later said that “no man in England but Defoe ever stood in the pillory and later rose to eminence among his fellow men.”
From 1719 to 1724, Defoe published the novels for which he is now famous (see below). In the final decade of his life, he also wrote conduct manuals, including Religious Courtship (1722), The Complete English Tradesman (1726), and The New Family Instructor (1727). He published a number of books decrying the breakdown of the social order, such as The Great Law of Subordination Considered (1724) and Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business (1725), and works on the supernatural, like The Political History of the Devil (1726), A System of Magick (1726), and An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727). His works on foreign travel and trade include A General History of Discoveries and Improvements (1727) and Atlas Maritimus and Commercialis (1728). Perhaps his greatest achievement alongside the novels is the magisterial A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–27), which provided a panoramic survey of British trade on the eve of the Industrial Revolution.
Moll Flanders and Defoe's final novel Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724) are examples of the remarkable way in which Defoe seems to inhabit his fictional (yet "drawn from life") characters, not least in that they are women. The latter narrates the moral and spiritual decline of a high society courtesan.
He disposed of the main Union opponent, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, by just ignoring him. Nor does he account for the deviousness of the Duke of Hamilton, the official leader of the Squadrone Volante against the Union, who finally acted against his comrades in the decisive stages of the debate.
Defoe's description of Glasgow (Glaschu) as a "Dear Green Place" has often been misquoted as a Gaelic translation for the town. The Gaelic Glas could mean grey or green, chu means dog or hollow. Glaschu probably actually means 'Green Hollow'. The "Dear Green Place", like much of Scotland, was a hotbed of unrest against the Union. The local Tron minister urged his congregation "to up and anent for the City of God". The 'Dear Green Place' and "City of God" required government troops to put down the rioters tearing up copies of the Treaty, as at almost every mercat cross in Scotland. |
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