Daniel Defoe Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Daniel Defoe

Defoe's modern literary reputation is based almost entirely on the series of prose narratives that he wrote from 1719 to 1724. In April of 1719 Robinson Crusoe was published; with the success of that work, he went on to write a sequel which was only slightly less successful. He then produced in rapid succession a series of first-person narratives, the best known of which are Moll Flanders (1722), A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), and Roxana (1724). Within these five years, Defoe singlehandedly gave to prose fiction a power and imagination which it had never attained in England before him; if he did not succeed in making prose fiction entirely respectable, in Robinson Crusoe he created a work which was to be read throughout the world. It was quickly translated and started a rage for the island tale--the "Robinsonade"--which has yet to show signs of fading away. Some biographers and critics have found difficulty in reconciling Defoe's life and ideas with his creation of such fictions, particularly his tales of prostitutes and thieves, but more often than not the problem has lain with some preconceived notion of Defoe's character and milieu.

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