Daniel Defoe

• Born in 1660, in a family of Dissenters (protestants that did not accept the Church of England)
• He studied modern languages, economics and geography.
• His most famous work is Robinson Crusoe
• Robinson Crusoe was written between 1715-19 and it was first published as The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner who lived Eight and Twenty Years all alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America near the Mouth of the Orinoco, first edition in April 1719
• Defoe also worked as journalist and pamphleteer
• It's considered one of the earliest examples of the English novel
• His father proposed him a religious career at nineteen, but he refused and worked as an apprentice.
• He wrote The Review, a peridiocal that he published every 2-3 days for every week, from 1704 to 1713.
• The Review was a political journal that supported Whigs and attacked Tories
• After being released, he continued writing about politics and economics
• In 1708, he was arrested because of his satirical poem called "The True Born Englishman" which criticized the government
• After being released, he moved to London where he started writing novels and other works
• Queen Ann didn't like his critical attitide, and he was later tried and imprisoned.
• In 1719 he wrote Robinson Crusoe, in 1720 Captain Singleton, a voyager who becomes a pirate, in 1722 Moll Flanders, a woman born in prison, in 1724 The Fortunate Misstress, a woman who uses her beauty to get everything she wants.
• He is the father of the english novel. his narrative became the basis for the development of the realistic novel. His novels are fictional autobiographs, they pretend to be true. they consist of series of episodes united by the presence of a single hero. Defoe doesn't plan them or review them, therefore we can notice the plot incoherence. the narration si in first persone. The main topic is the isolation, both phically or socially.