Famous Authors — The Life and Work of Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe was born in London in the autumn of 1660. His father was a tallow chandler called James Foe, who lived in the parish of Cripplegate in the city of London. Tallow is the animal fat used in making candles or soap, so a tallow chandler could be a very good business to have James Foe was a Presbyterian Christian and, as far as we know, a sober and godly man, and very likely a supporter of the late Oliver Cromwell's Puritan Commonwealth. In 1660 the exact form of your religion was very important to the stability of your life. The Foe household were strict Puritans, but in 1660 Cromwell was dead and Charles II, a much more easy-going gentleman, had been brought back to be king. A new jolly licentious time was beginning in London and the country at large. It was not easy to be a Puritan. However, the baby Foe knew nothing of these changes, though they were to considerably affect the course of his life. The first notable event in his life began in early 1665. In the centre of the city people began dying in large numbers. The plague had struck. Suddenly people would begin to find large boils erupting on their bodies, and in a very short time they were dead. It was a terrifying calamity. By midsummer the deaths had reached appalling numbers. Sixty-two years later Defoe himself was to give an extraordinary account of the plague in his Journal of the Plague Year. By this time he was a master of journalistic style, but he must have constantly heard stories of the plague during his childhood, and his book remains the most vivid retelling of these terrible days. I remember, and while I am writing this story, I think I hear the very sound of it. A certain lady had an only daughter, a young maiden about nineteen years old, and he was possessed of a very considerable fortune. They were only lodgers in the house where they were. The young woman, her mother, and the maid had been abroad on some occasion, I do not remember what, for the house was not shut up. But about two hours after they came home the young lady complained she was not well. In a quarter of an hour more she vomited, and had a violent pain in her head. While the bed was airing the mother undressed the young woman, and just as she was laid down in the bed, she, looking upon her body with a candle, immediately discovered the fatal tokens on the inside of her thigh. Her mother, not being able to contain herself, threw down her candle, and shrieked out in such a frightful manner that it was enough to place horror upon the stoutest heart in the world. Nor was it one scream or one cry, but the fright having seized her spirit she fainted first, then recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs and down the stairs, like one distracted, and indeed really was distracted, and continued screeching and crying out for several hours, void of all sense, or at least government of her senses, and, as I was told, never came thoroughly to herself again. As to the young maiden, she was a dead corpse from that moment. It was so long ago that I am not certain, but I think the mother never recovered, but died in two or three weeks after. For the dissenters, like the faux family, the plague seemed like a punishment from God on the people of England, who had suddenly gone wild with their plays and dancing and loose living, under their King Charles II, who seemed to lead them all with his mistresses and his parties. The dissenters were so called, because in 1662 Parliament passed an Act called the Act of Uniformity, whereby all clergymen had to give their assent to the prayer-book of the Church of England, or else give up their churches. The faux minister refused to assent to this, so he and his congregation, who shared his views, had to leave the Church of England and set themselves up in meeting-houses as Presbyterian dissenters. In 1664 a second blow fell on the dissenters. What was called the Conventicle Act forbade the meeting or convention of more than five people to worship in any way other than by the prayer-book order. What happened, of course, was that these harsh rules made the dissenters stronger in their beliefs. They had to worship in secret. All this was very important for Defoe. This intolerance on the part of the government affected his outlook, his education, and every step of his working life in the future. As if the plague of 1665 wasn't bad enough, another disaster hit the London of young Daniel Defoe, as he was then still called. At three o'clock in the morning of Sunday 3rd September 1666 there began the Great Fire of London. By morning everything was burning, and the fire raged for three days, destroying eighty-seven churches, many public buildings, and over thirteen thousand homes. The plan of the city after the fire shows the devastated area in the centre. The Foe House was spared. James Foe's business seemed to prosper, and by 1674 the question of Daniel's education arose. Cambridge or Oxford would have been the natural goal for a well-to-do merchant's son. There a young man would learn much Latin and Greek, how to behave himself like a gentleman, and much else that would not please the strictly moral dissenters. However, because the universities were run by the Church of England clergymen, they were barred to the dissenters. So when it was time for Defoe to receive some higher education, he had no choice but to go to a dissenting academy. At Newington Green to the north of London was the academy run by the Reverend Charles Morton, as it turned out an excellent teacher who later went to America and became the first vice-president of Harvard University. Defoe could not have been in better hands, and in fact he got a wider and more practical education from Morton than he would have got at Oxford. The main limitation he suffered from was that he met only dissenters, and dissenters were cut off from the mainstream of English life, not business life, because they did well there, but from intellectual life, and for a writer this meant that he was cut off from his fellow writers. Round about 1680, Defoe began trading as a merchant, buying things wholesale and selling them on to retailers who sold to the public. By 1684 he was doing well enough to impress a merchant called Tuffley, who agreed to Defoe's marriage with his daughter Mary, and to giving with her a dowry of 3,700 pounds, a pretty large sum of money in those days. In 1688 he was made a livery man of the city of London, which was recognition of his wealth and success in business. He had a London house and a warehouse in Cornhill, and a house in the country. By 1692 he was doing very well, but war had broken out with France. Two ships carrying his goods were captured, and he lost a lot of money. He did not have sufficient funds to pay his bills, and his business collapsed. As this could easily lead to the debtors' prison, he went into hiding, and promised his creditors he would pay their in full if they would give him time. They were hard days for Defoe and his family. 1688 had seen momentous events in public affairs also. King Charles II had died in 1686, and his Catholic brother James, as James II, was attempting to force Catholicism down the throats of his people. This was immensely unpopular, and in what was called the Bloodless Revolution, he was asked to leave the country. England could no longer stomach a Catholic monarch. From Holland came the Protestant William, Prince of Orange, and Mary, to become king and queen as joint monarchs. Mary was the niece of Charles II. With all these events, Defoe was intimately concerned. No dissenter could fail to be worried about the possibility of a new Catholic king, and delighted at the success of the Protestant one. The success enjoyed by William and Mary was to be even more important to Defoe. Soon after his business failure in 1692, he began to be given small government jobs, accountant to the Commissioner of Glass, for example, who collected the tax imposed on Glass. He later claimed to have traveled at this time to every nook and corner of that part of the island called England. All this he appears to have done on secret duties for the king. In other words, he was a political or secret agent. He had even become so acceptable to King William that he was presented to the queen as well. How did it happen that Daniel Defoe, for that was how he now starred himself, who had a ruined business career behind him, and had had to go into hiding for debt, should be so trusted as to work for William and Mary? His rehabilitation was complete and remarkable, and as Mary was dead by 1694, it had not taken long. Defoe undoubtedly had friends in high places, and perhaps recognizing his worth, they had helped him. There's little evidence to go on, but the travels he mentions probably mean that he traveled around the country as a secret service agent, and sent back reports to the king about how his subjects felt about the issues of the day, and in particular about the actions of the government. The reports were Defoe's first efforts at sustained writing. He obviously did it well, and he obviously enjoyed it. He was to become the writer in English literature with perhaps the largest output to his name. 1698 saw the publication of An Essay Upon Projects, Defoe's first real book. In it he suggested improvements for organizing the society of his day. Defoe suggested that the road should be rebuilt, and made much wider, with the obvious advantage of improved communications. He was certainly drawing here on his own wide experience of the English road system. He thought it would be a good idea if criminals could be made to work on them, thereby making a fruitful use of their time. Drawing on his financial experience, he suggested changes and extensions in the banking system, and the introduction of income tax. He proposed an asylum for idiots, and way ahead of his time, education for women. The essay says much about Defoe's agile and intelligent mind. He seemed to be constantly turning his mind to new ideas and challenges, and his ability to cope with an immense amount of work seems boundless. In 1694, Defoe began to recoup his fortune and pay his debts by starting a brickwork on land he owned near Tilbury, by the River Thames. With all the building going on in London, it was an astute move. By 1697 he had a contract to supply bricks and tiles for the huge new hospital being built at Greenwich. He was soon able to pay off most of his debts, and to buy a coach, and live once more like a gentleman. He was also writing continuously now, mostly pamphlets in support of King William's policies, for which efforts we must assume he was paid in some way by the King. William wanted a permanent army with which he could counter King Louis XIV of France in some way. Defoe wrote an article supporting the King's policies in this. Pamphlet followed pamphlet. Defoe was to write more than 300 of them. In January 1701, he published a long poem called The True-born Englishman. It was an outspoken defence of King William, who had been accused by his enemies of, quite rightly, not being really English, and peopling his court with his fellow Dutchmen. Defoe brilliantly puts the question to his audience, who is the true-born Englishman? The English are a mongrel race at best, he suggests. French, Irish, Scots, Danes, and the hosts of fugitives from other countries, these all form the basis of English society, an enormous mixture of people. What do a few Dutchmen matter amongst this, especially when there are as fine characters as King William? The pamphlet was immensely successful and popular, and did much to raise King William in the eyes of his countrymen. The pamphlet obviously made quite clear to the King how useful a man Defoe was. In May, another spectacular pamphlet was produced. Legion's Memorial to the House of Commons was presented there by Defoe himself, protected by 16 gentlemen of quality. It told Parliament that the King wanted money for his army against France, and the people supported the King, so Parliament had better listen and find the money. They did. Defoe's fame and popularity increased. Though popular were the many who agreed with him, he was inevitably considered dangerous by those who did not. King William suddenly died, and Queen Anne came to the throne. The Queen was a great supporter of the Church of England. Though she also accepted the act of toleration whereby other religions were permitted, it was easy to suggest to her that people who did not support her favoured Church of England were against it. The Tory right-wing party began to stir up feeling against the dissenters. Defoe could not resist interfering, and produced his pamphlet, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. In it he said that if dissenters were against the Church of England, then they had to be punished. If England hanged people for stealing a few shillings, then only death was possible for those who went against the chosen Church of Queen Anne. Of course, it was a joke against the silly, exaggerated criticism of the dissenters by the right-wing Tories. Unfortunately, his enemies did not laugh, and the upshot was that Defoe was arrested and sentenced to appear in the pillory three times, and then be imprisoned. Although many people sympathised with him, it was dreadful punishment for him to bear. However, instead of having eggs thrown at him, which was the normal procedure, he was garlanded with flowers, and people in the crowd drank his health. Robert Harley was a rising politician, soon to become Secretary of State in Queen Anne's government. He decided that Defoe and his pamphlets, and his abilities as a secret servant agent, could be of great value to him. He caused Defoe to be released from prison. He even persuaded the Queen that Defoe was worth forgiving, and that she might generously pay for Defoe's expenses at his trial, and send a gift of money to Mrs. Defoe. For a number of years, Defoe was to be of major assistance to this powerful man. From the many letters Defoe wrote to him, which have fortunately been preserved, we learn much of Defoe, of course, but an enormous amount, too, about the ideas and events of the period. Amongst other things, Harley wanted a newspaper from Defoe, and Defoe started his weekly review. It began as eight pages once a week, and then changed to four pages twice a week. It ranged over the current topics of the day, but of course in particular the war with France. Apart from Robinson Crusoe, it must be seen as Defoe's most astounding performance. He wrote the review all himself, and kept it going for seven years. Of course, he expressed his own views in his own way, but essentially the paper was the mouthpiece of Harley's moderate Tory government. Defoe's review made him many enemies, because he could not resist speaking his mind. The coffee houses were the great institution of the time, where newspapers were read, and political discussion took place. In this cartoon from a rival paper, Defoe is playing leapfrog with the devil, implying that he always tread dangerously, and of course shifted his ground a lot, holding a new opinion one minute, and changing it the next. Always to suit himself, they suggested. Doubtless Defoe would have been able to defend his changes of mind. One of Defoe's major jobs for Harley took him to Edinburgh. In 1704, the governments of England and Scotland were still separate, and negotiations were underway to unite them. More than a hundred years before, the Scottish King James VI had gone to England on the death of Queen Elizabeth to become the English King James I, but the parliaments of the two countries had remained separate. Defoe's task was to do what he could to help promote the arrangements for a union of the parliaments, which was resisted by many Scots. He settled himself in the city near Parliament, and was soon very busy persuading doubters that it was a good thing, reassuring the Scots that their own particular brand of Protestant church would be left alone, and of course at the same time he was informing Harley and the government Defoe worked secretly, and appeared to be operating as a merchant. It seems that he actually set up a business, which he was to continue in later years. Defoe's private opinion of the Scots was not in general very high. A hardened, refractory, and terrible people, he called them. In other ways, he respected them. He wrote such a lot about the Scots in his review that he probably did more than any other Englishman of his time to remove prejudices against them. He was totally committed to the idea of union, seeing it as of great importance to both countries. Defoe's career as a journalist and government agent continued apace. He was continually in a phrase of one kind or another. This cartoon, a very complicated seven-headed monster, includes the head of Defoe, called after his review, and represents the Uyghur liberal faction firing daggers at a certain Tory high church minister called Sir Cheverell, who was always attacking the dissenters. The Sir Cheverell scandal rumbled on for ages. The minister was actually brought to trial for going too far against the dissenters. Much to Defoe's delight. Here, in another troubled moment, a cartoon represents what is called the funeral of the low church and the Whigs. This was caused by the Tories' great victory in the general election of 1710, in which they defeated the Whigs by two to one. It was a great blow to Defoe, the Whigs, and the dissenters. Here, Defoe and others are trying to revive a fainting Whig, and others attend his deathbed. While Harley was strong, Defoe was secure. But like all politicians, Harley's time came, and he fell from power. Rather forcefully, he was accused of treason and sent to the Tower of London. Worse still was the death of Queen Anne. Before her death, Defoe wrote three extremely vicious pamphlets against the possible succession of the German George, Prince of Hanover, as the Queen had no surviving children. Roughly speaking, Defoe said George would be a disaster. The Queen died. She was succeeded in 1714 by George, Prince of Hanover, as King George I. It was a black day for Defoe, and getting out of that took all his remarkable powers. Somehow he kept his head above water, writing for journals. In 1715, he produced The Family Instructor, by which he conveyed moral instruction to parents and children, husbands and wives, masters and servants. It may seem sentimental stuff in the 20th century, but in the 18th, it went to eight editions by 1720, and he produced a sequel. Around 1701, a young Scotsman called Alexander was born in the tiny fishing village of Lower Largo, on the coast of Fife. He ran away to sea, and after a number of adventures, found himself alone on a tropical island called Juan Fernandez, off the coast of South America. Here he was forced to come to terms with his isolation. He built a home for himself and raised crops and livestock. Defoe was caught by the story, and produced in 1719, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. It contains all the riches of practical experience that Defoe had garnered over his almost 60 years. Who was better equipped than he to write such a tale, sustaining our interest, making the whole thing credible, giving Crusoe the right mixture of strength and weakness we can all recognize and sympathize with. The name Crusoe seems to have come from his past. Timothy Crusoe was a schoolmate at Newington Green, and went on to be a dissenting minister. Much else from Defoe's experience of ships and trade, even of brickmaking and kilns, went into the book. The coffee houses and the intelligentsia looked down on Robinson Crusoe, but the middle and lower classes took to it hugely, and they kept the printers busy for years to come. Of course, the book continues to appear in edition after edition in all languages. We all admire Crusoe because he makes a go of his difficult situation. He doesn't give in, and he's wonderful at finding practical solutions to things. We all think that in our better moments we might just about manage as he did. Undoubtedly there is much of Defoe in this. Who else, after a life of ceaseless activity, could become a novelist on such a scale? Captain Singleton followed, then, Moll Flanders, The Story of a Fallen Woman, and itself a minor masterpiece, always engaging, always alive. We really care about her. Then Colonel Jack and Roxana. Defoe knew how to hold his audience, and in the remaining decade of his life he was as busy as ever. He settled in Stoke Newington, near where he had been educated as a boy. He was involved with the local church and the people of the community. Mysteriously, he suddenly left home, and it seems he could not return. Was he pursued by the law yet again? In 1731 he died in a cheap lodging house in the city close to where he was born. He was 71 years old, and had led an astonishingly active and creative life. He was buried in Bunhill Fields, the dissenter's burial ground. The works of Defoe fall roughly into two groups, non-fiction in the form of essays and pamphlets, and novels. Non-fiction. Throughout his life Defoe produced a host of pamphlets and essays of variable nature and length. More than five hundred pamphlets are recorded. It is fair to describe him as the world's first journalist. He covered an enormous range of topics, including An Essay Upon Projects, a series of proposals for social and economic improvement, published in 1697. This was the first book he published. Conjugal Lewdness. The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, or Proposals for the Establishment of the Church, 1703. The Storm, 1704, is a collection of real witness accounts of the Tempest of 1703. It is certainly one of the world's first examples of modern real-life journalism. A Review of the Affairs of France, 1704, which supported the Harley Ministry. The review ran three times a week without interruption until 1713. This was the main mouthpiece of the English government, promoting the Act of Union between Scotland and England in 1707. The Family Instructor, 1715, was an immensely successful manual on how to deal with your religious duties. A continuation of the letters writ by a Turkish spy, 1718, is a satire on European politics and religion professedly written by a Muslim in Paris. Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business, 1725. The Complete English Tradesman, 1726. An Essay Upon Literature, 1726. His works on foreign travel and trade include A General History of Discoveries and Improvements, 1727. A Plan of the English Commerce, 1728. The True-Born Englishman, a satire. The Education of Women. A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, divided into Circuits or Journeys, 1724–27. This vast work provided a survey of British trade on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. London, the Most Flourishing City in the Universe, 1728. Novels. In spite of his vast output of journalism, it is as a novelist that Defoe is best known today. The novel, the art form in which the individual is so richly and intimately explored, and is now so much a part of our lives, was in its infancy in Defoe's time. In his hands, it took on many of the elements we now take for granted. Robinson Crusoe, 1719, is surely one of the most successful novels ever written, and is still read worldwide. The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719. Well ahead of Hollywood, Defoe knew how to milk success. The King of Pirates, 1719. This was a subject very popular in Defoe's day. Captain Singleton, 1720. Starting in Africa, this adventure story also involves piracy. Memoirs of a Cavalier, 1720. Set during the Thirty Years' War and the English Civil War. A Journal of the Plague Year, 1722. This is a complicated novel set in London in 1665, the year of the Great Plague. Maul Flanders, 1722. This is a picaresque or journey-through-life novel written as a personal account of the fall of a woman who, after trailing through the gutter, is redeemed. Defoe was particularly good at depicting female characters and managing to keep the sympathy of his readers. In his day, it was his most successful work. Colonel Jack, 1722, is about a boy who rises from poverty and crime through every kind of adversity, always with the goal of becoming a gentleman. Roxana, The Fortunate Mistress, 1724, was Defoe's last novel. It concerns the far-from-grace of a society lady and is again in the first-person confessional style of Maul Flanders. The essence of Defoe must be the novel Robinson Crusoe. While in its psychological insights it has the character of the best of Defoe's fiction, it also has an element of reportage which makes it all the more convincing.