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...