Biography Essay

Daniel 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 that 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 single-handedly gave to prose fiction a power and imagination that 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 that 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...